The Genetic Architecture of Colour and the Evolution of Marine colour polymorphisms

动物王国中的颜色被广泛用于各种目的，在某些情况下，也可以作为潜在遗传控制的直接表型指标，为探索基本进化过程提供模型。到目前为止，颜色在海洋领域的作用研究得很少。此外，海洋生物中的色素很少被表征，并且对海洋无脊椎动物中颜色合成的分子控制知之甚少。由于地球表面几乎70%是水，而超过80%的动物门都是水生的，这就代表了我们对自然世界的理解上的一个重大空白。这一规则的一个例外是热带海星Linkia laevigata，这是一种以各种颜色变体存在的常见物种。最引人注目的颜色变体中的深皇家蓝色的色素是已知的，整个颜色基因已经测序。因此，金樱子为海洋颜色的研究提供了一个独特的模型基础。本博士将首先致力于确定金樱子的颜色变异是否依赖于蛋白质变异，从而遗传。它还将包括整个棘皮动物的颜色变化，并使用基因插入技术来研究基因在体内的作用。此外，我的目标是重建一个新的Asteroidea的系统发生，因为目前还没有达成共识，以集团内的关系。

Colour in the animal kingdom is widely used for a variety of purposes and in some instances,may also act as a direct phenotypic indicator of underlying genetic control, providing a modelfor the exploration of fundamental evolutionary processes. To date, the role of colour in themarine realm has been poorly studied. Furthermore, colour pigments in marine organismshave rarely been characterised and very little is known about the molecular control of coloursynthesis in marine invertebrates. As almost 70% of the Earth's surface is water, and morethan 80% of animal phyla are exclusively aquatic, this represents a major gap in ourunderstanding of the natural world.One exception to this rule is the tropical seastar Linckia laevigata, a common species thatexists as a variety of colour morphs. The pigments responsible for the deep royal bluecolouration of the most striking colour morph are known, and the entire colour gene has beensequenced. L.laevigata therefore provides a unique model for the basis of studies of marinecolour.This PhD will initially focus on establishing whether colour variation in L.laevigata isdependent on protein variation and so heritable. It will also encompass colour variationthroughout the echinoderms and use gene insertion techniques to study the role of the genein vivo. In addition, I aim to reconstruct a new phylogeny of the Asteroidea as there iscurrently little consensus as to the relationships within the group.