Collaborative Research: Evolutionary genomics of rapid adaptation in threespine stickleback

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。生物学家在了解单个基因的变化如何使生物体应对不断变化的环境方面取得了重大进展。然而，整个基因组——生物体DNA中编码的全部遗传信息——是如何对新环境做出反应的，目前尚不清楚。特别是，当独立的种群适应相似的环境时，尚不清楚基因组变化的比例以相同的方式发生。对三刺棘鱼的研究为解决这个问题提供了一个极好的机会。海洋形式的棘鱼不断入侵淡水栖息地并被孤立，这导致了在骨骼大小、身体颜色和交配行为等特征上的重复差异模式。这项研究的目的是分析阿拉斯加海洋棘鱼多个种群的全基因组分化模式，这些种群在1964年大地震期间形成的淡水池塘中定居。利用尖端的测序技术和新开发的评估全基因组遗传变异模式的技术，该项目将评估每个种群对其新的淡水栖息地的基因组反应的相似性。本研究提供了在生物体对自然和人为引起的环境变化的反应过程中发生的基因组变化的案例研究。此外，这项工作的结果将更好地理解生物体如何应对气候变化的基因组基础，气候变化是另一个可能刺激快速进化的环境扰动。包括阿拉斯加原住民在内的研究生和本科生将成为研究的一部分，一个网站提供了有关该项目的小学水平的材料。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)Biologists are making significant progress in understanding how changes in single genes allow organisms to cope with changing environments. Howeever, it is still unknown how entire genomes - the total genetic information encoded in an organism's DNA - respond to novel conditions. In particular, when independent populations adapt to similar environments, it is unclear what proportion of genomic changes occur in the same way. Studies of threespine stickleback fish provide an excellent opportunity to address this problem. Repeatedly, the ocean form of sticklback has invaded and become isolated in freshwater habitats, which has resulted in replecated patterns of divergence in traits such as bone size, body coloration and mating behavior. The goal of this research is to analyze patterns of divergence across entire genomes of multiple populations of Alaskan oceanic stickleback that colonized freshwater ponds formed during a massive earthquake in 1964. Using cutting-edge sequencing technology and newly developed techinques for evaluating genome-wide patterns of genetic variation, this project will evaluate the similarity of genomic responses of each population to their new freshwater habitats. This research provides a case study of the genomic changes that occur during the responses of organisms to both natural and human-caused environmental changes. In addition, the results of this work will provide a better understanding of the genomic basis of how organisms respond to climate change, another environmental perturbation that could stimulate rapid evolution. Graduate studiens and undergraduates including Alaska Natives will be part of the research, and a website provides elementary-school level materials about the project.