A butterfly for all seasons: physiological mechanisms underlying environmentally induced morphologies and behaviors in Bicyclus anynana

用来吸引异性的性行为和装饰品在整个动物界都是不同的。早期暴露在特定环境中可能会改变发育程序，并改变这些成人性装饰和物种内行为的结果。剩下的一个科学谜团是这些来自外部环境的线索是如何转化到动物体内的。荷尔蒙，特别是那些由性腺产生的荷尔蒙，在改变大脑、性装饰和行为的发育方面发挥着至关重要的作用。然而，荷尔蒙只是故事的一半。荷尔蒙到达体内的每一个细胞，但只有当激素受体与荷尔蒙结合成活性复合体时，发育系统才对荷尔蒙敏感。因此，荷尔蒙和荷尔蒙受体之间的动态可以调节发育轨迹何时以及如何改变。这项提议旨在发现这些荷尔蒙信号系统如何产生不同的性行为和装饰品，以应对环境的变化。这项工作将在新兴的模型系统--眯着眼睛的灌木丛棕色蝴蝶--中进行。该物种在求偶、配偶偏好和性装饰方面表现出性别角色的颠倒，这取决于幼虫所经历的外部温度。这项工作的结果将影响许多研究人员，他们有兴趣将发育动力学与行为和形态联系起来，从而推动我们对生物体作为综合系统的理解。该项目将培训一名博士后研究员、一名研究生和本科生，将跨学科技术(生物、化学和物理)整合到一个进化框架中，以理解作为复杂系统的有机体在其发育过程中的作用。目前的合作者包括耶鲁大学物理系和医学院的成员。为了超越学院，该项目将包括开发一个互动教育模块，使用数字照片数据库来演示性别选择和蝴蝶翅膀图案进化的作用，并在性信号和蝴蝶翅膀图案进化中众包新发现。这一方法将在耶鲁大学计算机科学本科生的帮助下开发，并在皮博迪博物馆针对少数族裔高中生的“进化”科学推广计划进行Beta测试，然后向更广泛的高中教育工作者和他们的学生发布。

Sexual behavior and ornaments used to attract the opposite sex are varied across the animal kingdom. Early exposure to certain environments can switch the developmental program and alter the outcome of these adult sexual ornaments and behaviors within a species. A remaining scientific mystery is how these cues from the outside environment are translated to the inside of the animal. Hormones, especially those produced by the gonads, play a crucial function in changing the development of brains, sexual ornaments and behaviors. However, hormones are only half the story. Hormones reach every cell in the body, but the developmental systems are only sensitive to hormones if they express hormone receptors to bind with the hormones into active complexes. Thus, the dynamics between hormones and hormone receptors can regulate when and how developmental trajectories change. This proposal aims to discover how these hormone signaling systems produce different sexual behaviors and ornaments in response to changes in the environment. The work will be carried out in the emerging model system, the squinting bush brown butterfly, Bicyclus anynana. This species displays a sex role reversal in courtship, mate preference and sexual ornaments depending on the external temperature the young insect experiences.The outcomes of this work will influence the many researchers interested in linking developmental dynamics to behavior and morphology thereby pushing forward our understanding of organisms as integrated systems. The project will involve training a post-doctoral researcher, a graduate student, and undergraduates in integrating cross-disciplinary techniques (biology, chemistry, and physics) into an evolutionary framework for understanding organisms as complex systems across their development. Current collaborators include members of the Yale Physics Department and the Medical School. To reach beyond the academy, the project will include development of an interactive educational module using a digital photo database to demonstrate the role of sexual selection and butterfly wing pattern evolution and to crowd source new discoveries in the evolution of sexual signals and butterfly wing patterns. This approach will be developed with the assistance of Yale computer science undergraduates and beta tested with the Peabody Museum's "Evolutions" science outreach program to minority high school students before being released more widely to high school educators and their students.