DISSERTATION RESEARCH: The role of volatile organic compounds in antagonistic selection in the moss Ceratodon purpureus

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This project will investigate how differences in natural selection on males and females effects the genetic basis of scent differences in the moss, Ceratodon purpureus. In many plants and animals, males and females exhibit many differences in form and physiology. These differences are thought to arise because qualities that are beneficial in one sex may be deleterious in the opposite sex. Although physical differences between males and females are very conspicuous, we have a poor understanding of the genetic mechanisms that generate these differences, and many of their benefits. In Ceratodon, female mosses produce scents to attract small insects that carry sperm from male plants, promoting reproduction, while male plants make few such scents. This research will test the idea that the production of these scents is costly in males, and that the genes for scent production are present but turned off in males. In addition, the project will involve mentoring both undergraduate and high school students, including individuals from groups that are underrepresented in the sciences.The project will use quantitative genetics and transcriptomic experiments to understand the evolutionary forces shaping sexually dimorphic scent profiles. Scents are comprised of a cocktail of volatile organic compunds (VOC). Measures of VOC production in a pedigreed population is providing an estimate of the additive genetic variance and covariance for VOC production in males and females. Competitive mating trials will be used to evaluate the fitness consequences of variation in VOC production in males and females, both in the presence and absence of sperm-dispersing arthropods. RNAseq analyses in high and low VOC producing males and females will be used in conjunction with existing biochemical pathway databases to identify transcripts linked to VOC production. The transcriptomic work will lay the foundation for studying the resolution of genome-wide genetic conflict.