Bridging observational, experimental and genomic insights on species and speciation through comparative analyses in a new vertebrate model system

物种是生物多样性的基本单位，但识别自然界中的物种，以及了解这些物种如何以及为什么形成，仍然是重大的科学挑战。本研究的目标是确定物种的边界，解释为什么物种分化，测试物种之间的生殖隔离的存在，并调查自然选择在物种形成中的作用。通过解决这些目标中的每一个在一组密切相关的物种在不同阶段的分歧，这项研究将涉及最详细的分析物种和物种形成以往任何时候都在爬行动物。这项工作的结果将提供新的见解，是了解物种和生物多样性的有效保护管理的核心。这项工作的发现将以堪萨斯大学自然历史博物馆展览的形式公开分享，该博物馆将吸引学龄游客及其导师，并通过两个受公众和所有年龄段学生欢迎的在线资源。这项工作将调查现代合成时代的观点，物种是表型独特和生殖隔离的人口，由于创始人事件，遗传漂变和相关现象在地理隔离分歧的挑战。首先，通过量化基因组，表型和生态变异在一个高度可变的物种复杂，这项工作将测试，如果最近的物种形成事件被忽视了传统的分类方法。其次，景观遗传分析将被用来测试的地理和生态过程的物种分化的贡献。第三，多代实验杂交将测试内在生殖隔离是否在物种形成过程中相对较早地进化，并符合一般规则。最后，第四，使用映射的基因组序列数据，从自然界中采样的个人和个人与已知的谱系，这项工作将测试物种之间的初始分歧的结果主要来自自然选择作用于有限数量的基因座或基因组区域。这项工作将在一个高度可变的物种复合体中调查这些主题中的每一个，该复合体包括物种形成过程各个阶段的种群。这里提出的工作将需要最详细和综合分析以往任何时候都在爬行动物进行，并将导致一个新的实验室模式生物的发展，第一个爬行动物基因组组装通过连锁图谱，和第一次估计的遗传力和基因组基础的表型性状重要的爬行动物的系统研究。

Species are the fundamental units of biological diversity, but the identification of species in nature, and understanding of how and why these species form, remain significant scientific challenges. The goals of this research are to identify species boundaries, explain why species diverged, test for the presence of reproductive isolation between species, and investigate the role of natural selection in speciation. By addressing each of these objectives in a group of closely related species at varying stages of divergence, this research will involve the most detailed analyses of species and speciation ever conducted in a reptile. The results of this work will provide new insights that are central to understanding species and to effective conservation management of biological diversity. Discoveries resulting from this work will be shared publicly in the form of an exhibit at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum that will engage school aged visitors and their instructors as well as via two online resources that are popular with the general public and students of all ages. This work will investigate challenges to the modern synthesis-era view that species are phenotypically distinct and reproductively isolated populations that diverged in geographic isolation due to founder events, genetic drift and related phenomena. First, by quantifying genomic, phenotypic, and ecological variation across a highly variable species complex, this work will test if recent speciation events have been overlooked by traditional taxonomic methods. Second, landscape genetic analyses will be used to test the contribution of biogeographic and ecological processes to species divergence. Third, multi-generational experimental crosses will test if intrinsic reproductive isolation evolves relatively early in the speciation process, and in accordance with general rules. Finally, fourth, using mapped genomic sequence data from individuals sampled in nature and individuals with known pedigrees, this work will test if initial divergence between species results largely from natural selection acting on a limited number of loci or genomic regions. This work will investigate each of these topics in a highly variable species complex that includes populations at various stages of the speciation process. The work proposed here will entail the most detailed and integrative analyses ever conducted in a reptile and will result in development of a new laboratory model organism, the first reptile genome assembled via linkage mapping, and the first estimates of heritability and the genomic basis for phenotypic traits important to systematic studies of reptiles.