Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/L011255/1
Genomic Invasion and the Role of Behaviour in Rapid Evolution
Fellowship Award
- Fellow:
- Professor N Bailey, University of St Andrews, Biology
- Grant held at:
- University of St Andrews, Biology
- Science Area:
- Atmospheric
- Earth
- Freshwater
- Marine
- Terrestrial
- Overall Classification:
- Terrestrial
- ENRIs:
- Biodiversity
- Environmental Risks and Hazards
- Global Change
- Natural Resource Management
- Science Topics:
- Behavioural Ecology
- Evolution & populations
- Evolution & populations
- Evolutionary genetics
- Gene flow
- Hybridisation
- Speciation
- Abstract:
- LAY SUMMARY I want to catch evolution in the act, and my proposal aims to test what happens to genomes when novel mutations "invade". Such an invasion could occur through spontaneous mutation in a section of DNA that codes for or regulates the activity of a gene, or by migration of genes from another population or species due to hybridization. I am particularly interested in how the ability of an organism to adjust its behaviour depending on the prevailing conditions might compensate for negative effects of such a genomic invasion and facilitate more rapid evolutionary change. The emergence and spread of new mutations with a selective advantage is at the heart of the evolutionary process, but this process is extraordinarily challenging to observe in a natural system for two reasons: the first is that the likelihood of detecting such a genomic invasion is miniscule because they happen so rarely. The second is that evolutionary change has been thought to occur at a very slow pace, much longer than a researcher's lifetime. My proposal capitalises on a textbook example of rapid evolution that is occurring right now in the Oceanic field cricket, Teleogryllus oceanicus. Male crickets usually sing to attract females for mating, but in the Hawaiian archipelago, they also attract a deadly parasitoid fly (Ormia ochracea). Recently, a mutation that feminises male wings by erasing sound-producing structures on male wings arose and spread. It is called flatwing, and it exists in two populations and appears to have different genetic origins. My research will work out what, exactly, has changed in the genome of these different populations to cause this mutant male type, and it will test how the rest of the genome has responded. In particular, I will make use of a time-series of genomic DNA collections from the wild to visualise and test how the genes that lie in close physical proximity to the mutation get "swept" along with it, or become homogenized with the rest of the genome. In other words, when the flatwing mutation invaded the T. oceanicus genome, two things may have happened. The first is that genes nearby got dragged along and are now over-represented in the population, and the second is that genes in other parts of the genome produced phenotypic effects that worked particularly well with the mutation, and therefore are more likely to be found in the mutant variety of males than in normal males. I know from previous work that crickets are sensitive to their social environment, in particular, to the presence or absence of acoustic songs that males produce. Both females and males change their mating behaviour to suit the prevailing social conditions, and I will test the hypothesis that the flatwing mutation was able to spread in response to selection from parasitoids more rapidly because social flexibility enabled crickets to cope with the changed social environment, namely, the silent environment that emerged as flatwings became more numerous. I have devised a cricket tracking setup in the lab, which replicates the wild environment and which I can use to test cricket behaviour and mating success. It involves video and audio recording crickets, and enables me to manipulate the composition of interacting individuals during trials. In this manner, I can vary crickets' social experience, what population they are from, and the relative abundance of the different morphs, to test how social flexibility contributes to the reproductive success of mutant males. Results from these trials stand to illuminate how behaviour interacts with the evolutionary process, and how the rate of evolutionary change can be affected by the social environment and individual organisms' responses to that environment.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/L011255/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Research Fellowship
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- IRF
This fellowship award has a total value of £576,086
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| DI - Other Costs | Indirect - Indirect Costs | DI - Staff | DA - Estate Costs | DA - Other Directly Allocated | DI - T&S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £67,659 | £151,441 | £203,152 | £69,840 | £50,319 | £33,675 |
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