The Genetics of Behavioral Reproductive Isolation in Threespine Sticklebacks

描述（由申请人提供）：尽管在人类行为和人类行为障碍中看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，目前很少有模型脊椎动物系统，其中的行为变化的研究，在一个自然的，近亲繁殖的群体可以遗传解剖。三刺棘鱼（Gasterosteus aculeatus）遗传和基因组工具的最新发展为在明确定义的生态和进化背景下研究行为变异的遗传基础提供了机会。三刺鱼的交配行为可能是所有动物系统中研究得最好的。先前的研究表明，雄性和雌性交配行为的差异导致了在一个湖泊中适应两种不同栖息地（“底栖”和“沼泽”）生活的刺鱼种群之间的生殖隔离。在不列颠哥伦比亚省有多个湖泊，这些底栖生物和湖泊的“物种对”已经进化，交配行为的类似变化在每个湖泊中都独立发生。本研究的目的是利用数量性状位点（QTL）定位研究来自两个湖泊（Priest和Paxton）的底栖棘鱼和沼泽棘鱼生殖隔离行为的遗传基础。这些实验种群将在室外池塘中完全自然的条件下饲养和行为评估。通过研究与生殖隔离相关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），本研究将测试在隔离湖泊中平行物种对的棘鱼是否具有相似的遗传结构，以实现与生殖隔离相关的趋同行为。该项目还将测试影响生殖隔离行为的QTL是否与影响已知对配偶选择重要的性状（如体型和形状）的基因组区域不成比例。重要的是，这里提出的QTL定位实验将作为鉴定自然棘鱼种群行为差异的基因的第一步。棘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在鱼和人类之间可能是保守的。此外，人类和刺鱼在相似的进化时间框架内迁移和适应新环境，这表明研究刺鱼行为变异的遗传结构与人类的类似研究直接相关。

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.