Genomic Approaches to Resolving Phylogenies of Antarctic Notothenioid Fishes

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。南极洲周围水域的硬骨鱼群完全由一个密切相关的物种——Notothenioidei——所控制。该分支为研究深时间古地理转变和全球气候变化时期对谱系多样化和适应性辐射促进的影响提供了前所未有的机会。拥有超过100种,南极notothenioid辐射生物化学的深入探讨的主题,生理和形态适应性与避免冻结在冰冷的南方海洋栖息地。然而，广泛取样的时间校准的南极鱼系统发育假说尚未被用于检查该分支的适应性辐射模式。该项目的目标是为124种已知的南极鱼中90种建立密集的系统发育规模数据集，并利用该基因组资源生成时间校准的分子系统发育树。初步系统发育研究的结果表明，南极鱼的初始多样化与大约8000万年前东冈瓦纳大陆的破碎有关，而南极进化支的适应性辐射起源与大约3500万年前全球变冷和南大洋极地条件形成的时期有关。该项目将为本科生提供研究经验，为研究生提供培训，并支持博士后研究人员。此外，该项目还将包括来自纽黑文公立学校的三名高中生进行暑期研究实习。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).The teleost fish fauna in the waters surrounding Antarctica are completely dominated by a single clade of closely related species, the Notothenioidei. This clade offers an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the effects of deep time paleogeographic transformations and periods of global climate change on lineage diversification and facilitation of adaptive radiation. With over 100 species, the Antarctic notothenioid radiation has been the subject of intensive investigation of biochemical, physiological, and morphological adaptations associated with freezing avoidance in the subzero Southern Ocean marine habitats. However, broadly sampled time-calibrated phylogenetic hypotheses of notothenioids have not been used to examine patterns of adaptive radiation in this clade. The goals of this project are to develop an intensive phylogenomic scale dataset for 90 of the 124 recognized notothenioid species, and use this genomic resource to generate time-calibrated molecular phylogenetic trees. The results of pilot phylogenetic studies indicate a very exciting correlation of the initial diversification of notothenioids with the fragmentation of East Gondwana approximately 80 million years ago, and the origin of the Antarctic Clade adaptive radiation at a time of global cooling and formation of polar conditions in the Southern Ocean, approximately 35 million years ago. This project will provide research experiences for undergraduates, training for a graduate student, and support a post doctoral researcher. In addition the project will include three high school students from New Haven Public Schools for summer research internships.