A butterfly for all seasons: physiological mechanisms underlying environmentally induced morphologies and behaviors in Bicyclus anynana

在动物界，性行为和用来吸引异性的装饰物各不相同。早期暴露在特定的环境中可以改变一个物种的发育程序，改变这些成年性装饰和行为的结果。一个仍然存在的科学谜团是，这些来自外部环境的线索是如何转化到动物体内的。荷尔蒙，尤其是由性腺产生的荷尔蒙，在改变大脑发育、性装饰和性行为方面起着至关重要的作用。然而，荷尔蒙只是故事的一半。激素到达体内的每一个细胞，但只有当发育系统表达激素受体与激素结合成活性复合物时，它们才对激素敏感。因此，激素和激素受体之间的动态可以调节发育轨迹何时以及如何改变。本研究旨在发现这些激素信号系统如何根据环境变化产生不同的性行为和性装饰。这项工作将在新兴的模型系统中进行，眯丛棕蝶，双环蝶。该物种在求偶、择偶和性装饰方面表现出性别角色的转换，这取决于幼年昆虫所经历的外部温度。这项工作的结果将影响许多对将发育动力学与行为和形态联系起来感兴趣的研究人员，从而推动我们对有机体作为综合系统的理解。该项目将包括培训一名博士后研究员、一名研究生和一名本科生，将跨学科技术（生物学、化学和物理学）整合到一个进化框架中，以理解生物体在其发展过程中的复杂系统。目前的合作者包括耶鲁大学物理系和医学院的成员。该项目还包括开发一个互动教育模块，使用数字照片数据库来展示性选择和蝴蝶翅膀图案进化的作用，并在性信号和蝴蝶翅膀图案进化方面获得新发现。这种方法将在耶鲁大学计算机科学本科生的帮助下开发，并在皮博迪博物馆的“进化”科学推广项目中对少数民族高中生进行beta测试，然后再向高中教育工作者和他们的学生广泛发布。

Sexual behavior and ornaments used to attract the opposite sex are varied across the animal kingdom. Early exposure to certain environments can switch the developmental program and alter the outcome of these adult sexual ornaments and behaviors within a species. A remaining scientific mystery is how these cues from the outside environment are translated to the inside of the animal. Hormones, especially those produced by the gonads, play a crucial function in changing the development of brains, sexual ornaments and behaviors. However, hormones are only half the story. Hormones reach every cell in the body, but the developmental systems are only sensitive to hormones if they express hormone receptors to bind with the hormones into active complexes. Thus, the dynamics between hormones and hormone receptors can regulate when and how developmental trajectories change. This proposal aims to discover how these hormone signaling systems produce different sexual behaviors and ornaments in response to changes in the environment. The work will be carried out in the emerging model system, the squinting bush brown butterfly, Bicyclus anynana. This species displays a sex role reversal in courtship, mate preference and sexual ornaments depending on the external temperature the young insect experiences.The outcomes of this work will influence the many researchers interested in linking developmental dynamics to behavior and morphology thereby pushing forward our understanding of organisms as integrated systems. The project will involve training a post-doctoral researcher, a graduate student, and undergraduates in integrating cross-disciplinary techniques (biology, chemistry, and physics) into an evolutionary framework for understanding organisms as complex systems across their development. Current collaborators include members of the Yale Physics Department and the Medical School. To reach beyond the academy, the project will include development of an interactive educational module using a digital photo database to demonstrate the role of sexual selection and butterfly wing pattern evolution and to crowd source new discoveries in the evolution of sexual signals and butterfly wing patterns. This approach will be developed with the assistance of Yale computer science undergraduates and beta tested with the Peabody Museum's "Evolutions" science outreach program to minority high school students before being released more widely to high school educators and their students.