DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Revealing the genomic targets of opposing natural selection that differ between females and males

同一物种的雄性和雌性共享一个基因组，并表达许多相同的特征。然而，在这些共同特征的自然选择中，两性往往会经历巨大的差异。当一种特征及其潜在基因在一种性别中是有益的，而在另一种性别中是有害的时，就会产生一种进化上的拔河。本研究将探讨这种选择冲突在棕色变色蜥蜴。这种冲突可能发生在任何有不同性别的物种中，并被预测对男女差异的进化、性别决定系统和遗传变异的维持具有重要意义。研究人员将对具有极端性别差异的野生种群中的个体进行基因测序，以确定受这种选择冲突影响的基因组区域。此外，该项目将为本科生提供研究培训，研究将作为开发实地测试教材的基础，旨在培养K-12课堂上的数据解释技能。尽管它对生物学中的许多重大问题都有影响，但性别冲突很少在野生种群中得到证明，我们还没有确定自然种群中受性别冲突影响的基因组的实际区域。本项目有三个目的：(1)测试自然选择中各种性状的性别差异；(2)通过测量雄性和雌性之间适应性遗传基础的相关程度来测试性冲突的适应性成本；(3)将野外适应性估计与大规模基因组数据和强大的统计方法相结合，揭示野生棕色变色蜥种群（Anolis sagrei）中与性冲突相关的基因组区域。这项工作是在一个拥有一千多只成年蜥蜴的岛屿上进行的，这非常适合进行大规模的自然选择研究。研究人员将使用他们的数据来测试是否相同的基因组区域有助于两性的适应性，测量这些基因在多大程度上受性别选择差异的影响，并确定适应性的哪些组成部分（生存，繁殖成功）引起了局部性冲突。

Males and females of the same species share a genome and express many of the same traits. However, the two sexes often experience dramatic differences in natural selection on these shared traits. This can create an evolutionary tug-of-war when a trait and its underlying genes are beneficial in one sex, but detrimental in the other. This study will investigate this selection conflict in brown anole lizards. Such conflict can occur in any species with separate sexes and is predicted to have important implications for the evolution of differences between males and females, systems of sex determination, and the maintenance of genetic variation. The researchers will genetically sequence individuals from a wild population with extreme sex differences to identify genomic regions that are subject to this selection conflict. In addition, this project will provide research training for undergraduate students and the research will be used as the basis for developing field-tested educational materials designed to build skills for data interpretation in the K-12 classroom.Despite its implications for so many major questions in biology, sexual conflict has rarely been demonstrated in wild populations, and we have yet to identify the actual regions of the genome that are subject to sexual conflict in natural populations. This project has three aims: (1) test for sex differences in natural selection on a variety of traits, (2) test for fitness costs of sexual conflict by measuring the extent to which the genetic basis of fitness is correlated between males and females, and (3) combine field estimates of fitness with large-scale genomic data and powerful statistical methods to uncover genomic regions associated with sexual conflict in a wild population of brown anole lizards (Anolis sagrei). This work is being conducted using an island population of more than a thousand adult lizards that is highly amenable to large-scale studies of natural selection. The researchers will use their data to test whether the same genomic regions contribute to fitness in each sex, to measure the extent to which these genes are subject to sex differences in selection, and to determine which components of fitness (survival, reproductive success) give rise to intralocus sexual conflict.