The smell of speciation: chemical signalling in butterfly diversification

物种形成的气味：蝴蝶多样化中的化学信号

• 批准号: 2275927
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Cambridge
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2275927
• 关键词: smell; speciation; chemical; signalling; butterfly

The integration of genomic data with ecological and behavioural observations of the Heliconius butterflies provides anexcellent opportunity to study the genomic consequences of speciation. Interspecific wing pattern variation in this grouphas been particularly well studied but we know much less about their chemical communication, which also plays animportant role in sexual communication and species recognition. A key compound in sexual signalling has recently beenidentified in H. melpomene along with electrophysiological evidence for its role in mate choice. In addition, foundationshave been laid for investigating the genetic basis of pheromonal differences between H. melpomene and H. cydno byrecent crossing experiments and genomic (QTL) analysis. This project will study such pheromonal differences in malesand the corresponding female preferences. The work will involve experiments to follow up on the genomic analysiscurrently underway, including genetic manipulation experiments using CRISPR to test the function of candidate wingpheromone genes. This will be complemented by behavioural assays with resulting male mutants to study the role ofspecific genes in mating behaviour. In addition, I will raise additional controlled crosses and conduct chemical analysis ofhybrid butterfly wing samples to identify important compounds. I will then conduct further behavioural assays usingsynthesised compounds to study the role of specific compounds in female preference.

将基因组数据与蝴蝶的生态和行为观察相结合，为研究物种形成的基因组后果提供了一个极好的机会。这一群体的种间翅膀模式变化已经得到了很好的研究，但我们对它们的化学通讯知之甚少，而化学通讯在性交流和物种识别中也起着重要作用。最近，一种与性信号有关的关键化合物在H. melpomene中被发现，并有电生理证据证明其在择偶中的作用。此外，通过近期的杂交实验和QTL分析，为探究墨尔墨墨和cydno信息素差异的遗传基础奠定了基础。这个项目将研究男性的信息素差异以及相应的女性偏好。这项工作将涉及对目前正在进行的基因组分析进行后续实验，包括使用CRISPR进行基因操作实验，以测试候选翼费洛蒙基因的功能。这将通过对雄性突变体的行为分析来补充，以研究特定基因在交配行为中的作用。此外，我将增加对照杂交，并对杂交蝴蝶翅膀样本进行化学分析，以确定重要的化合物。然后，我将使用合成化合物进行进一步的行为分析，以研究特定化合物在女性偏好中的作用。