Reconstructing evolutionary history in adaptive radiations with genomic data

进化生物学家试图理解为什么生命形式会有如此巨大的多样性，以及这些不同的形式是如何随着时间的推移而发展的。解决这些问题的一种方法是研究和比较密切相关物种的基因组成。生命中一些最引人注目的多样性例子是在一个被称为适应性辐射的过程中进化出来的，即在相对较短的时间内，由一个共同的祖先产生了种类繁多、关系密切的物种。非洲某些湖泊中慈鲷的适应性辐射为这一过程提供了迷人的例子，在那里，这些鱼在颜色、形状、繁殖和摄食行为上表现出令人难以置信的多样性。最近发展的技术使得从野生生物中获得大量基因数据变得更加容易，因此现在有可能记录这些物种的基因组成比以往任何时候都要多几千倍。该项目将利用这些基因组数据来研究在两种非洲慈鲷适应性辐射中形成的物种的历史，从而提高我们对物种进化的方式和原因的理解，并对生物多样性的起源有更深入的了解。除了科学目标之外，这项工作还将通过利用遗传数据了解和监测生物多样性的合作讲习班，加强与坦桑尼亚和刚果民主共和国的国际伙伴的关系。它还将涉及为中学课堂上的进化论和生物多样性教学开发教材。适应性辐射是研究在快速时间尺度上进化的形式多样性的进化过程的典型系统。然而，这些多样化事件的快速性质意味着重建物种分化的历史可能是极具挑战性的。最近获得的非模式生物全基因组序列数据促成了数据的根本转变，这些数据可用于解决与物种快速多样化历史相关的问题。这样的基因组数据集提供了新的机会，将群体遗传学方法与系统发育方法结合起来，以了解适应性辐射中的物种和物种形成的历史。本研究将通过研究基伍湖的单色瓢虫和坦噶尼喀湖的菲罗菲瓢虫这两种模式瓢虫的适应辐射，扩展基因组数据如何帮助重建快速适应辐射历史的知识。它将利用新的基因组资源来研究这些群体的进化史和影响遗传多样性模式的进化过程。

Evolutionary biologists seek to understand why there is such tremendous diversity in life forms and how these diverse forms developed over time. One approach to addressing these questions is to study and compare the genetic makeup of closely related species. Some of life's most striking examples of diversity have evolved in a process known as adaptive radiation, when a wide variety of closely related species arise from a common ancestor during a relatively brief period of time. Adaptive radiations of cichlid fishes in certain African lakes provide captivating examples of this process, where these fishes exhibit incredible diversity in color, shape, and reproductive and feeding behaviors. Recently developed technologies make it easier to obtain large amounts of genetic data from wild organisms, so that it is now possible to document thousands of times more of the genetic makeup of these species than ever before. This project will use such genomic data to study the history of species that have formed in two African cichlid fish adaptive radiations, thus improving our understanding of how and why species have evolved, and yielding greater insight into the origins of biodiversity. In addition to its scientific goals, this work will strengthen relationships with international partners in Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo through a collaborative workshop on the use of genetic data in understanding and monitoring biodiversity. It will also involve the development of educational materials for teaching about evolution and biodiversity in middle school classrooms. Adaptive radiations are exemplary systems for studying evolutionary processes due to the diversity of forms that evolve on rapid timescales. However, the rapid nature of these diversification events means that reconstructing the history of species divergence can be intensely challenging. The recent attainability of genome-wide sequence data for non-model organisms has precipitated a fundamental shift in the data that can be used to address questions related to the history of rapidly diversifying species. Such genomic datasets present new opportunities for uniting population genetics approaches with phylogenetic approaches to understand the history of species and speciation in adaptive radiation. This research will expand knowledge of how genomic data can aid in reconstructing the history of rapid adaptive radiations by studying two model cichlid adaptive radiations, Lake Kivu's haplochromine cichlids and Lake Tanganyika's tropheine cichlids. It will use newly available genomic resources to investigate the evolutionary history of these groups and the evolutionary processes influencing patterns of genetic diversity.