When genomes collide: using hybrid zones to transform our understanding of behavioral and speciation genetics.

项目总结 德尔莫尔实验室正在进行的研究的总体目标是了解行为的遗传学 和物种形成。行为特征与健康、人类健康和疾病密切相关，但对它们的了解 遗传基础是有限的，并受到几个挑战的阻碍，包括它们的复杂性(例如， 由组织特异性途径介导的许多性状的整合)和圈养动物的有限表达 动物模型。我们对物种形成的知识也存在类似的差距，这与方法上的缺陷有关 用于在基因组水平上识别生殖隔离。物种形成所涉及的进化过程(例如， 适应、混合和基因组冲突)对于理解个体和种群水平很重要 人类疾病风险的模式。德尔莫尔实验室正在使用自然混合区--在这些地区 种群杂交和基因组学的最新进展，以克服与研究相关的挑战 行为和物种形成的遗传学。杂交区的重组隔离了个体的影响 遗传基因座，提供了一个入口点来识别潜在的行为变异的遗传变异 自然种群。在允许的情况下，行为上的差异通常有助于维持杂交区的物种边界 同时开展物种形成遗传学方面的工作，包括估计生殖隔离的新方法。这个 德尔莫尔实验室已经开发出鸣禽之间的迁徙鸿沟，作为了解鸣禽遗传学的模型 季节性迁徙行为和物种形成。迁徙分化是不同种群之间的杂交地带 在几个迁徙特征(例如，迁徙的时机和方向)上。迁徙性状具有很强的遗传性 这些特征的基础和差异有助于维持物种边界。德尔莫尔实验室最近成立 在田间和实验室可靠地量化迁徙特征的基础设施。它们可以与这些表型相匹配 包含来自多个分子水平和特定大脑区域的信息的数据。这个系统将被用来 在本提案中研究迁徙和物种形成的遗传学。创新多管齐下的方法 将使用，将混合作图和自然种群基因组学结果与 基因调控和功能分析的实验室检查。通过用以下内容补充这些结果 比较分析，德尔莫尔实验室的成员将测试他们发现的一般性并继续 为未来的研究确定未开发的途径。总之，这些发现将提供前所未有的洞察力。 形成季节性行为和物种形成的遗传机制，并解决了几个基本问题 进化遗传学中的问题，如多效性在协调多个性状中的作用、来源和 表型性状的遗传变异类型，多基因座相互作用对物种形成的贡献， 以及进化的分子机制是否在分类尺度上是保守的。

PROJECT SUMMARY The overall objective of research being pursued in the Delmore lab is to understand the genetics of behavior and speciation. Behavioral traits are tightly linked to fitness, human health, and disease but knowledge of their genetic basis is limited and has been hindered by several challenges, including their complexity (e.g., integration of many traits that are mediated by tissue-specific pathways) and limited expression in captive animal models. Similar gaps in our knowledge of speciation exist and relate to shortcomings in approaches used to identify reproductive isolation at the genomic level. Evolutionary processes involved in speciation (e.g., adaptation, admixture and genomic conflict) are important for understanding individual- and population-level patterns of human disease risk. The Delmore lab is using natural hybrid zones – areas where divergent populations interbreed – and recent advances in genomics to overcome challenges associated with studying the genetics of behavior and speciation. Recombination in hybrid zones isolates the effects of individual genetic loci, providing an entry point to identify genetic variants underlying behavioral variation exhibited by natural populations. Differences in behavior often help maintain species boundaries at hybrid zones, permitting simultaneous work on speciation genetics, including new approaches for estimating reproductive isolation. The Delmore lab has developed a migratory divide between songbirds as a model to understand the genetics of seasonal migratory behavior and speciation. Migratory divides are hybrid zones between populations that differ in several migratory traits (e.g., the timing and direction of migration). Migratory traits have a strong genetic basis and differences in these traits help maintain species boundaries. The Delmore lab recently established the infrastructure to quantify migratory traits reliably in both the field and lab. They can match these phenotypic data with information from multiple molecular levels and specific brain regions. This system will be leveraged to study the genetics of migration and speciation in the present proposal. An innovative multi-pronged approach will be used, integrating results from admixture mapping and population genomics in natural populations with laboratory examinations of gene regulation and functional analyses. By supplementing these results with comparative analyses, members of the Delmore lab will test the generality of their findings and continue identifying untapped avenues for future research. Together, these findings will provide unprecedented insight into genetic mechanisms that shape seasonal behavior and speciation and address several fundamental questions in evolutionary genetics, such as the role of pleiotropy in coordinating multiple traits, the sources and types of genetic variation underlying phenotypic traits, the contribution of multi-locus interactions to speciation, and whether molecular mechanisms of evolution are conserved across taxonomic scales.