Evolution of UV Vision and Wing Coloration in Heliconius Butterflies and Co-Mimics

项目标题：蝴蝶紫外线视觉和翅膀着色的进化和协同模拟首席研究员：Briscoe，Adrianna D.共同首席研究员：Reed，Robert D.NSF项目编号：1025106模仿，通过这种现象，生物变得像远亲，厌恶或有毒的生物，提供了一些野生适应进化的最强例子。虽然有很多证据表明，水生动物的视觉系统和颜色信号是同步进化的，但这种相互关联的进化在多大程度上存在于模仿蝴蝶及其视觉捕食者等陆地动物中，在很大程度上是一个悬而未决的问题。这一建议是基于最近的一项发现，即蝴蝶体内对紫外线敏感的视觉色素的复制和积极选择与其翅膀上紫外线黄色色素的进化相吻合，这可能是视觉捕食者和/或潜在配偶的信号。该项目试图通过解剖学、分子、生理学和计算机模拟实验，研究赫利柯乌斯中翅膀色素和视觉眼色素的进化，以及模仿赫利柯乌斯的云林蝴蝶群落。这些数据将与环境光测量一起用于改进蝴蝶和鸟类色觉的计算模型，以进一步了解在紫外线范围内进化出新的视觉光感受器和信号对生物体的潜在好处。一名博士后、研究生和几名本科生将接受分子生物学、遗传学、生物化学和光谱分析方法方面的培训。遗传数据将存放在公开可用的数据库GenBank http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/中，机翼反射光谱将在期刊和实验室网站上在线提供。

Project Title: Evolution of UV Vision and Wing Coloration in Heliconius Butterflies and Co-mimicsPrincipal Investigator: Briscoe, Adrianna D.Co-Principal Investigator: Reed, Robert D.NSF Project Number: 1025106Mimicry, the phenomenon by which organisms come to resemble distantly related distasteful or poisonous organisms, provides some of the strongest examples of adaptive evolution in the wild. While there is much evidence to suggest that the visual systems and color signals of aquatic animals evolve in tandem, the extent to which such correlated evolution exists in terrestrial animals like mimetic butterflies and their visual predators is largely an open question. This proposal is based on a recent discovery that duplication and positive selection of an ultraviolet-sensitive visual pigment in Heliconius butterflies coincided with the evolution of UV-yellow pigments on their wings which may serve as a signal to both visual predators and/or potential mates. The project seeks to investigate the evolution of wing pigments and visual eye pigments in Heliconius, and a community of cloud forest butterflies that mimic Heliconius using anatomical, molecular, physiological and computational modeling experiments. Together with environmental light measurements, these data will be used to refine computational models of butterfly and avian color vision to further our understanding of the potential benefit to the organisms of evolving new visual photoreceptors and signals in the ultraviolet range. A postdoc, graduate student and several undergraduates including members of underrepresented groups in the sciences will be trained in molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry and spectrometric methods. Genetic data will be deposited in the publically available database GenBank http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/ and wing reflectance spectra will be made available online in journal and lab websites.