The robotics lab is equipped with instruments to record the growth and composition of the experimental populations and communities. The basic device for microwell experiments is the automated plate reader, capable of generating information on cell density and metabolic activity throughout the course of an experiment, and operating rapidly enough to make it possible to run extensive and detailed assays to evaluate the outcome of selection. We shall use a flow cytometer to gain more detailed information on the composition and the characteristics of the experimental lines. Material from the experiments is passed to a sample acquisition and processing lab that is equipped with ovens, cryogenics, centrifuges and filtration apparatus for preparing samples from the experimental material. These are in turn passed to a sophisticated analytical lab where most of the instrumentation for measuring physiological attributes is housed. The lab is specially equipped to work on photosynthesis, metals (especially iron) and pollutants. The equipment includes high-pressure liquid chromatography for isolating siderophores (iron-sequestering structures) and characterizing pollutants; low-pressure chromatography for isolating membrane-bound receptors; a PAM fluorometer for analysing the architecture of the photosynthetic pathway, an atomic absorption spectrophotometer for measuring low concentrations of metals, and a spectrofluorometer for assays of enzymes and pollutants. This will enable us to carry out detailed physiological evaluations of our experimental lines. We also plan genetic analyses involving two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and DNA microarrays, but in view of the availability of genomics facilities at McGill these will be conducted outside LE3. Furthermore, mass spectrometry and cell sorting will be available to our group in the new life sciences building. Finally, the modelling lab is equipped with a powerful Beowulf cluster to develop theoretical models interactively with the ongoing experimentation.

Why experimental ecology and evolution are important

LE3 will offer a new kind of technology to Canada. It will be a technology based on evolutionary principles that will offer a new and powerful way of creating organisms with desirable characteristics. Conventional techniques rely either on engineering genomes for specific functions (biotechnology) or on simple screens to identify suitable organisms to perform those functions (bioremediation). Neither are completely satisfactory. The engineering approach requires that one can identify the relevant genes in advance and predict all their interactions. The screening approach assumes that the relevant variation is already available, in extant species or genotypes. We shall show that selection will produce genotypes that lie beyond the limits of any screen and that could not have been constructed with our present knowledge of genetics. Moreover, we shall show that our techniques not only illuminate fundamental scientific issues, but can also be applied to practical problems. The use of selection-based procedures is not new, of course - indeed, in a sense it is as old as agriculture, and selection experiments with bacteria began fifty years ago. The novel feature of experimental evolution in LE3 is that it will deploy massive arrays of lines propagated over thousands of generations. The size and speed of the experiments will enable them to reveal the whole range of evolutionary outcomes and to detect rare events; thus, they will yield new kinds of organisms, that could not have been identified in nature nor constructed from scratch. These organisms have immense potential, both for solving current problems and for anticipating future events.

The Adaptive Radiation experiment in the Diversity project will be the core of the work in experimental evolution. Within three years, we shall have amassed a large library of bacterial strains selected in different environments. These will document the genetic basis of adaptation, and provide uniquely extensive data on fundamental aspects of the process of evolution. At the same time, it will demonstrate the feasibility of evolving strains able to metabolize an particular substrate, degrade a particular toxin or synthesize a particular compound. We expect this to have considerable potential in directly applicable research. If so, LE3 will ensure that Canada is the world leader.

At the same time, the Adaptation project will enable us to diagnose the effects of anthropogenic CO2 production, iron enrichment and pollution. Within two years, we shall know whether or not to expect substantial changes in plant physiology over the next century as a consequence of rising CO2 levels. We shall also know whether iron fertilization of the oceans would be likely to cause correlated changes in photosynthesis. Within three years, we would have identified the physiological basis of these changes. It is only evolutionary technology, harnessed in a facility like LE3, that will enable us to look into the future and predict how environmental changes will affect the characteristics of plant populations, a matter of urgent national concern to Canada.

We are confident that the selection experiments of LE3 will readily succeed in producing both fundamental and applied results of great interest. The goal of the Interaction and Stability projects is to extend such experiments to diverse, trophically complex communities. Here we are feeling our way towards an ecological technology that is as yet almost completely unproven. LE3 will act as a pioneer in the development and manipulation of model ecosystems, and we expect to make considerable advances in the first few years of operation. It would be unrealistic, however, to claim that these will produce quantifiable applications in this time. We shall complete screens of candidates for the nutrient-pulse experiments within two years of setting up the laboratory, and we aim to begin conducting invasion trials in long-term model ecosystems with defined trophic configuration within three years.

LE3 will also make a less easily definable contribution to the context of experimental research and its relation to public policy. One example of this is the Maintenance of Diversity experiments in the Diversity project. Within five years, we shall be able to show how the structure of the environment in time and space contributes to the maintenance of biodiversity, and therefore how landscape fragmentation and disturbance affect biodiversity loss. This is at some distance from practical issues in policy-making, but will nevertheless provide the experimental basis on which all the scientific arguments informing policy ultimately rest. LE3 as a whole, however, will also make a broader contribution to the climate of research. The great bulk of innovative research is directed specifically towards an immediate improvement in some procedure, treatment or product. It will often be successful in this, while creating new problems in the longer term or on larger scales. As technology advances, the potential for immense benefits and the risk of great disasters increase in parallel. We are much better at identifying the benefits, however, than in foreseeing the risks. It is clear what the short-term benefits of GMOs can be; their long-term consequences are obscure and debatable. Gene therapy and xenotransplantation may well come into clinical use only a few years in the future; they hold the promise of saving lives, and equally the threat of releasing new plagues. We have been very ineffective in foreseeing the evolutionary and ecological consequences of procedures that are applied primarily to individuals or to small plots of land. As our procedures become more powerful, it becomes more important to understand what their unintended long-term consequences might be. LE3 will provide a centralized facility and pool of expertise for addressing this emerging dilemma. In short, LE3 will make an important contribution to Canadian science and society by developing and delivering a new selection-based evolutionary technology. Some might argue that model ecological and evolutionary systems are never likely to be of much use, either for understanding or for controlling nature. Fifteen years ago, it was likewise argued that concentrating on model organisms such as C. elegans or Arabidopsis was unlikely to help us understand the general molecular basis of inheritance and development, let alone to inform medical research. How times change!