Integrating genetic, developmental, and anatomical evolution

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The central aim of this research is to discover how genes, development, and anatomy are integrated across large-scale evolutionary change. Two evolutionary events will be the focus of this research: the fish fin to amphibian limb and dinosaur arm to bird wing evolutionary transitions. These transitions are chosen because of their rich fossil record and the wealth of research on the developmental mechanics of fins the limbs. A series of complementary projects focused on skeletal anatomy and development are designed to achieve this goal through a student project-driven interdisciplinary research program. One set of projects will investigate details of the fossil and living anatomical record by amassing a complete set of qualitative and three dimensional quantitative data to assess the tempo and mode of skeletal evolution in the fins and limbs across these transitions. This work will determine the pace and timing of evolutionary change at these transitions. Another project will undertake a large gene sequencing project to identify what genes involved in fin and limb developmental patterning were evolving at each transition using current bioinformatics algorithms. Another project will investigate the developmental differences in early skeletal and other tissue developing in extant species bounding the two transitions to determine what developmental mechanisms may have been responsible for those evolutionary changes. Finally, the results will be integrated to determine how the evolving genes were associated with developmental changes to yield the large-scale skeletal evolution across these transitions. Significant genetic-anatomical associations will be tested in model chick embryos. This research will derive a comprehensive analysis of the interface between genetic and anatomical evolution. These results will have application to our understanding of how biological systems evolve and how developmental biology influences large scale evolutionary change.