HELICITY · Evolution of correlated traits in response to city life: helicid snails as windows on the consequences of urban history
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2021-06-01 → 2023-05-31
- EU contribution
- €166,320
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
HELICITY: Evolution of correlated traits in response to city life: helicid snails as windows on the consequences of urban history
Urbanization is one of the most dramatic land-use changes caused by humans, combining habitat fragmentation and loss, pollutions and increased temperature. While it causes numerous population declines in many species, others persist or even thrive in cities, possibly through evolutionary changes. In this project, the Researcher will study how urbanization shapes multivariate phenotypic evolution in such an organism, including not only life-history traits, movement strategies/space use… but their association into integrated phenotypes. As a central point, they will explicitly consider the oft-neglected temporal heterogeneity of the urbanization process, comparing new and older urban neighbourhoods to see under which conditions organisms can adapt to city life fast enough. Using snails as models, this Action will combine advances in small animal tracking, statistical analysis and data science with state-of-the-art evolutionary ecology, to not only explore the mechanisms behind observed changes, but also potential consequences for relevant aspects of ecosystem functioning. This project will increase our understanding of the ecological consequences of evolution in response to human-caused environmental changes, helping fill major knowledge gaps noted by the IPBES. Through outreach, it will increase community engagement with (urban) biodiversity. The main objectives of HELICITY are: • Understanding how urban history systematically improves our understanding of urban evolution and more broadly phenotypic changes • Quantifying The (genetic) trait axes of least resistance for urban evolution • Understanding how evolutionary responses predict ecosystem functioning shifts in cities • Showing how/whether embracing the complexity of urbanisation improves our understanding of urban evolution
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Urbanization is one of the most dramatic land-use changes caused by humans, combining habitat fragmentation and loss, pollutions and increased temperature. While it causes numerous population declines in many species, others persist or even thrive in cities, possibly through evolutionary changes. In this project, I will study how urbanization shapes multivariate phenotypic evolution in such an organism, including not only life-history traits, movement strategies/space use… but their association into integrated phenotypes. As a central point, I will explicitly consider the oft-neglected temporal heterogeneity/ history of the urbanization process, comparing new and older urban neighbourhoods to see under which conditions organisms can adapt to city life fast enough. Using snails as models, this Action will combine advances in small animal tracking, statistical analysis and data science with state-of-the-art evolutionary ecology, to not only explore the mechanisms behind observed changes, but also potential consequences for relevant aspects of ecosystem functioning. This project will increase our understanding of the ecological consequences of evolution in response to human-caused environmental changes, helping fill major knowledge gaps noted by the IPBES. Through outreach, it will increase community engagement with (urban) biodiversity. Finally, by merging two of my long-standing research lines in a common, integrated project, through the acquisition of new scientific skills and training in project management, it will favour my establishment as an independent leader in the field.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITEIT GENT · GentCoordinatorBelgium
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union