Collaborative Research: Physiological genomics of color vision in butterflies

许多有毒动物都有明亮的警告颜色，以阻止鸟类和蜥蜴等掠食者。通常一群不相关的物种通过共享单一的防御模式来相互模仿。对于蝴蝶这样的昆虫来说，它们利用翅膀的图案来识别自己的物种，特别是当它们选择配偶时，不同物种的模仿可能会令人困惑。该小组最近发现，南美洲和中美洲的有毒西番莲或Heliconius蝴蝶的色觉能够将Heliconius黄色翅膀色素与它们的模拟物区分开来，而这两种黄色色素产生的颜色对于鸟类色觉来说是无法区分的。 该项目将利用分子、解剖学、生物化学、电生理学和下一代测序方法研究Heliconius蝴蝶物种和性别之间的色觉差异。由此产生的色觉数据和模型将提供证据，说明颜色如何用于选择配偶和寻找产卵的叶子和喂养的花朵。这项研究将对Heliconius色觉进行预测，可以通过行为测试。这项研究将以前所未有的细节揭示一组密切相关的动物的色觉进化与它们在日常生活中遇到的信号的关系。虽然我们对动物颜色的性别差异了解很多，但对色觉的性别差异几乎一无所知。 这是一个现在可以解决的重大差距。该项目产生的光谱数据将存入Dryad数据库http://datadryad.org/，并免费向公众提供。将有一个博士后，研究生和本科生在细胞内记录和解剖方法，以及在下一代测序数据的分析培训。 本课题组将招募数学、化学专业的本科生进行颜色反射光谱分析。

Many toxic animals have bright warning colors to deter predators such as birds and lizards. Often a group of unrelated species mimic one another by sharing a single defensive pattern. For insects such as butterflies that use wing patterns to recognize their own species, especially when they are choosing mates, mimics of different species might be confusing. This group has recently found that the color vision of toxic passion vine or Heliconius butterflies of South and Central America is able to distinguish the Heliconius yellow wing pigments from those of their mimics, whereas the two types of yellow pigment produce colors that are indistinguishable for bird color vision. This project will investigate the differences in color vision between species and sexes of Heliconius butterflies, using molecular, anatomical, biochemical, electrophysiological and next-generation sequencing methods. The resulting data and models of color vision will provide evidence on how color is used for both choosing mates and finding leaves on which to lay eggs and flowers to feed. This study will make predictions about Heliconius color vision that can be tested behaviorally. This research will reveal in unprecedented detail the evolution of color vision within a group of closely-related animals in relation to the signals they encounter in their daily lives. Whereas much is know about sexual differences in animal coloration, virtually nothing is known about sexual differences in color vision. This is a major gap that can now be addressed. Spectral data resulting from this project will be deposited in the Dryad Data Repository http://datadryad.org/ and made freely available to the public. There will be training of a postdoc, graduate and undergraduate students in intracellular recording and anatomical methods, as well as in the analysis of next-generation sequencing data. This research group will recruit undergraduate math and chemistry majors to analyze color reflectance spectra.