Measuring the covariance between sensory systems and behavior: testing the assumptions of the sensory bias and sensory exploitation hypotheses

许多物种的雄性拥有奢侈的，色彩鲜艳的结构，生产成本高，增加了被捕食者看到和吃掉的可能性。 进化生物学的一个大问题是理解为什么雌性会选择雄性的这些奢侈的特征。 “感官偏见假说”认为，雌性的交配偏好是感官系统自然选择的副产品。 在这一假设下，对动物寻找食物、躲避捕食者和寻找适当栖息地的强烈自然选择导致了对交配偏好的间接选择。 这一假说的基本假设是，影响觅食偏好的基因（和神经通路）也会影响交配偏好。该项目将确定共享共同感觉系统的不同行为可以独立进化的程度。 本研究的目的是确定行为是否具有共同的感觉系统和/或感觉系统的变化是否会导致行为的变化。 为了解决这些问题，将产生大量的视觉特性的表型变异，并使用蓝鳍金枪鱼Lucania goodei测量行为的多个方面，这是一种以前被证明在种群内和种群之间具有大量视觉特性变异的物种。 更广泛的影响：这项研究将为研究生和几个本科生提供来自许多学科的各种技术经验。 该项目涉及进化生物学家和分子生物学家/视觉生理学家的合作，这将有助于建立生物科学系内的进化生物学组和其他组之间的联系，特别是在神经科学的大学范围内的程序。 该项目应该证明，研究视觉生理学的自然变化是一项值得的奋进，同时进一步深入了解视觉生理学的演变。

Males of many species possess extravagant, brightly colored structures that are costly to produce and that increase their likelihood of being seen and eaten by predators. One of the great problems of evolutionary biology is understanding why females select for such extravagant traits in males. The "sensory bias hypothesis" states that female mating preferences are by-products of natural selection on the sensory system. Under this hypothesis, strong natural selection on animals to find food, avoid predators, and find proper habitats results in indirect selection on mating preferences. The fundamental assumption of this hypothesis is that the genes (and neurological pathways) that affect foraging preferences also affect mating preferences. This project will determine the extent to which different behaviors that share a common sensory system can evolve independently. The objective of the study will be to determine if behaviors share a common sensory system and/or does variation in the sensory system lead to variation in behavior. To address these questions, large amounts of phenotypic variation in visual properties will be generated and multiple aspects of behavior will be measured using the bluefin killifish, Lucania goodei, a species previously demonstrated to have large amounts of variation in visual properties both within and between populations. Broader Impacts: The study will provide the graduate student and several undergraduates experience with a variety of techniques drawn from many disciplines. This project involves the collaboration of evolutionary biologists and molecular biologists/vision physiologists that will help build connections between the evolutionary biology group within the Biological Science Department and other groups, particularly the university-wide Program in Neuroscience. The project should demonstrate that studying natural variation in vision physiology is a worthwhile endeavor, while developing further insights into the evolution of vision physiology.