The Genetics of Behavioral Reproductive Isolation in Threespine Sticklebacks

描述（由申请人提供）：虽然在人类行为以及人类行为障碍中观察到的正常变异范围有重要的遗传贡献，但对影响任何生物体行为的基因知之甚少。特别是，目前有几个模型脊椎动物系统中的行为变化的研究，在一个自然的，远交种群可以遗传解剖。最近开发的遗传和基因组工具的threespine棘鱼（Gasterosteus aculeatus）提供了一个机会，研究行为变异的遗传基础，在一个明确的生态和进化背景。三棘鱼的交配行为可能是所有动物系统中研究得最好的。以前的工作表明，男性和女性的交配行为的分歧，导致生殖隔离棘鱼种群，已适应生活在两个不同的栖息地（“底栖”和“湖沼”）在一个单一的湖泊。在不列颠哥伦比亚省有多个湖泊，这些底栖和湖沼的“物种对”已经进化，在每个湖泊中独立地发生了交配行为的类似变化。本研究的目的是调查的遗传基础的行为参与生殖隔离之间的底栖和湖沼刺鱼从两个湖泊（牧师和帕克斯顿）使用数量性状基因座（QTL）定位。这些实验种群将在室外池塘的完全自然条件下饲养和行为评估。通过研究生殖隔离中涉及的行为表型的遗传基础（例如，雄性筑巢行为和雌性配偶偏好），这项工作将测试是否平行物种对棘鱼在孤立的湖泊共享相似的遗传结构的收敛行为涉及生殖隔离。该项目还将测试影响生殖隔离行为的QTL是否不成比例地映射到影响已知对配偶选择重要的性状的基因组区域，如体型和体型。重要的是，QTL定位实验提出这里将作为第一步，在自然刺鱼种群的行为差异的基础基因的识别。刺鱼的结果可能对理解人类行为变异和行为障碍的遗传基础具有重要意义，因为许多行为背后的遗传和神经通路可能在鱼类和人类之间保持不变。此外，人类和刺鱼在类似的进化时间框架内迁移并适应新环境，这表明研究刺鱼行为变异的遗传结构与人类的类似研究有直接关系。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although there is an important genetic contribution to the normal range of variation seen in human behaviors as well as human behavioral disorders, very little is known about the genes that influence behavior in any organism. In particular, there are currently few model vertebrate systems in which the study of behavioral variation in a natural, outbred population can be genetically dissected. The recent development of genetic and genomic tools for the threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) presents an opportunity to study the genetic basis of behavioral variation in a well-defined ecological and evolutionary context. The mating behaviors of the threespine stickleback are perhaps the best-studied of any animal system. Previous work has shown that divergence in male and female mating behaviors leads to reproductive isolation between stickleback populations that have adapted to living in two different habitats ('benthic' and 'limnetic') in a single lake. There are multiple lakes in British Columbia in which these benthic and limnetic 'species pairs' have evolved, and similar changes in mating behavior have occurred independently in each lake. The aim of this study is to investigate the genetic underpinnings of behaviors involved in reproductive isolation between benthic and limnetic sticklebacks from two lakes (Priest and Paxton) using quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping. These experimental populations will be raised and behaviorally evaluated under fully natural conditions in outdoor ponds. By investigating the genetic basis of behavioral phenotypes involved in reproductive isolation (e.g., male nesting behavior and female mate preferences), this work will test whether parallel species pairs of sticklebacks in isolated lakes share similar genetic architectures for convergent behaviors involved in reproductive isolation. This project will also test whether QTL influencing behaviors involved in reproductive isolation map disproportionately to genomic regions affecting traits known to be important for mate selection, such as body size and shape. Importantly, the QTL mapping experiments proposed here will serve as a first step in the identification of genes that underlie behavioral differences in natural stickleback populations. Results in sticklebacks are likely to have important implications for understanding the genetic basis of behavioral variation and behavioral disorders in humans because many of the genetic and neural pathways that underlie behaviors are likely to be conserved between fish and humans. In addition, humans and sticklebacks have migrated and adapted to new environments over a similar evolutionary timeframe, suggesting that studying the genetic architecture of behavioral variation in sticklebacks has direct relevance to similar studies in humans.