Dissertation Research: Ecological Genetics of a Cline in Adaptive Pigmentation

该项目的目标是确定负责维持自然种群的oldfield小鼠（Peromyscus polionotus）的颜色变化的进化因素，并确定有助于这种适应性着色的基因，该适应性着色通过将背部毛色与土壤颜色相匹配来使小鼠免受捕食者的侵害。 将使用定量和分子工具相结合的方法来研究博物馆标本，这些标本是沿着沿着180公里的土壤颜色梯度收集的，以解决以下问题：（1）在这个生态梯度上，种群之间发生了多少色素变化和基因流动？（2）色素基因的基因型与毛色的变化相关吗？ 这项研究明确了环境、生物体和潜在遗传学之间的联系，以了解生物体如何适应环境。这项研究的结果将清楚地证明自然选择对野生种群色素沉着的作用。这项研究的更广泛的影响将是：（1）强调博物馆收藏在现代研究中的重要性，（2）产生对保护和管理Peromyscus濒危种群有用的信息，（3）将本科教育和公众宣传纳入科学过程。

The goal of this project is to identify the evolutionary factors responsible for maintaining color variation in natural populations of oldfield mice (Peromyscus polionotus) and to identify genes contributing to this adaptive coloration, which camouflages the mice from predators by matching dorsal coat color to soil color. A combination of quantitative and molecular tools will be used to examine museum specimens collected across ten populations along a 180km gradient of soil color to address the following questions: (1) how much pigmentation variation and gene flow occurs among populations across this ecological gradient, and (2) do genotypes at pigmentation genes correlate with variation in coat color? This research makes an explicit link between the environment, the organism and the underlying genetics to understand how organisms adapt to their environment.Results from this research will provide a clear demonstration of natural selection acting on pigmentation in wild populations. The broader impacts of this study will be: (1) to highlight the importance of museum collections in modern research, (2) to generate information useful for conservation and management of endangered populations of Peromyscus, and (3) to incorporate undergraduate education and public outreach into the scientific process.