Ribotypic Variation and the Molecular Through Ecological Physiology of Muscle Performance

该项目将研究模式生物蜻蜓肌肉收缩性能变化的分子基础，并将评估这种变化对生物生态成功的影响。一个主要的焦点是确定在RNA水平上由基因的选择性剪接产生的变异如何影响细胞、组织和整个生物体水平的表现。这些机制途径的知识将用于确定肌肉性能是如何根据环境变化和感染肠道并减少能量摄入的格林寄生虫的存在而调整的。此外，所产生的肌肉性能对飞行性能的不同影响将被评估，反过来，飞行性能对雄性交配成功和雄性保卫理想领土的能力的影响将被评估。总之，这些结果将极大地增强我们对产生肌肉和运动性能变化的机制的认识，以及这些机制运作的生态环境。

This project will examine the molecular basis of variation in muscle contractile performance in a model organism, the dragonfly, and will assess the impact of such variation on the organism's ecological success. One primary focus is to determine how variation created by alternative splicing of genes at the RNA level affects performance at the cellular, tissue, and whole-organism levels. Knowledge of these mechanistic pathways will be used to determine how muscle performance is adjusted in response to environmental variation, and to the presence of gregarine parasites that infect the gut and reduce energy intake. Further, differential effects of the resultant muscle performance on flight performance will be assessed, and, in turn, effects of flight performance on male mating success and the ability of males to defend desirable territories will be assessed. Together, these results will greatly enhance our knowledge of mechanisms that create variation in muscle and locomotor performance, and the ecological context in which these mechanisms operate.