Collaborative Research: Discovering genomic and developmental mechanisms that underlie sensory innovations critical to adaptive diversification

所有的动物都必须感知它们的环境和其他生物，以寻找食物，避免威胁，并找到伴侣。某些个体比其他个体更有效地找到食物和配偶的能力，可以为他们留下更多的后代提供机会。然而，多种高级感觉系统很少在同一物种中进化，尽管它们可能赋予优势，这表明发展几种专门的感觉存在物理限制。该项目的重点是一个不同的热带蝙蝠群体，其中各种物种进化出敏锐的，专门的听力，超敏感的眼睛，闻到微妙的植物化学物质的能力，或高度发达的犁鼻系统（被认为有助于交配和社会等级）。该项目将比较150多种蝙蝠中涉及视觉、听觉、嗅觉和犁鼻系统的大约2000个基因。为了弄清楚这些基因是如何促进不同感觉系统的发育的，他们的行为将在实验室中进行研究。这项研究将揭示特定基因在获得专门感官中的作用，测试头部的大小是否限制了一个物种可以拥有的专门感官结构的数量，并发现感官适应如何随着时间的推移对物种多样性做出贡献。该项目将揭示听觉，视觉，嗅觉和犁鼻系统在一个大的蝙蝠超家族的特点是不同的感官适应与特定的饮食。对基因进化的分析将被用来检验这一假设，即感官创新是通过基因复制和正选择产生的。从野外收集的组织中测量基因表达，以及在发育中的胚胎中表达关键蝙蝠基因的实验，将用于阐明基因如何塑造适应性感觉结构。对感觉结构大小的详细测量的比较分析将评估感觉系统之间的权衡以及这些可能限制饮食或物种多样性的方式。国家的最先进的方法来量化基因和性状的进化和物种多样性之间的关系将被用来发现的影响，随着时间的推移，物种多样性的感官适应。这项研究将阐明基因组中的主要生物力量，在胚胎发育过程中，以及有助于物种成功适应其不断挑战的环境的解剖结构。

All animals must sense their environment and other organisms to find food, avoid threats, and find partners. The ability of some individuals to locate food and mates more effectively than others can open opportunities for them to leave many more descendants. And yet, multiple advanced sensory systems seldom evolve in the same species despite the advantages they may confer, suggesting there are physical limits to developing several specialized senses. This project focuses on a diverse group of tropical bats in which various species evolved acute, specialized hearing, supersensitive eyes, the ability to smell subtle plant chemicals, or highly developed vomeronasal systems (thought to contribute to mating and social hierarchy). This project will compare approximately 2000 genes involved in vision, hearing, olfaction and the vomeronasal system in more than 150 bat species. To find out how some of these genes contribute to developing distinct sensory systems, their actions will be studied in the lab. This research will uncover the role of specific genes in the acquisition of specialized senses, test whether the size of the head limits the number of specialized sensory structures a species can have, and discover how sensory adaptations contribute to the diversity of species through time.This project will uncover the evolution of genes and structures of the auditory, visual, and olfactory and vomeronasal systems in a large superfamily of bats characterized by diverse sensory adaptations associated with specific diets. Analyses of gene evolution will be used to test the hypothesis that sensory innovations arise through gene duplication and positive selection. Measurements of gene expression from tissues collected in the field, and experiments to express key bat genes in developing embryos will be used to elucidate how genes shape adaptive sensory structures. Comparative analyses of detailed measurements of the size of sensory structures will evaluate trade-offs between sensory systems and the way these may limit diversity of diets or species. State-of-the art methods to quantify relationships between gene and trait evolution and species diversity will be used to discover the impact of sensory adaptation on species diversity through time. This research will illuminate the main biological forces in the genome, during embryonic development, and in anatomical structures that contribute to the success of species in adapting to their ever-challenging environment.