DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Revealing the genomic targets of opposing natural selection that differ between females and males

同一物种的雄性和雌性共享一个基因组，并表现出许多相同的特征。然而，在这些共同的特征上，两性在自然选择上经常经历着巨大的差异。当一种性状及其潜在基因对一种性别有利，而对另一种性别有害时，这可能会造成一场进化的拉锯战。这项研究将调查棕色变态蜥蜴的这种选择冲突。这种冲突可能发生在不同性别的任何物种中，并被预测对雄性和雌性之间差异的进化、性别决定系统和遗传变异的维持具有重要影响。研究人员将对具有极端性别差异的野生种群中的个体进行基因排序，以确定受这种选择冲突影响的基因组区域。此外，该项目将为本科生提供研究培训，该研究将被用作开发现场测试教材的基础，旨在培养K-12课堂上数据解释的技能。尽管它对生物学中如此多的主要问题有影响，但性冲突在野生种群中很少被证明，我们还没有确定在自然种群中受性冲突影响的基因组的实际区域。这个项目有三个目标：(1)测试各种性状在自然选择中的性别差异；(2)通过测量适应的遗传基础在雄性和雌性之间的相关程度来测试性别冲突的适应代价；以及(3)将现场的适应估计与大规模的基因组数据和强大的统计方法相结合，以揭示野生棕色变态蜥蜴(Anolis Sgrei)与性冲突相关的基因组区域。这项工作是使用1000多只成年蜥蜴组成的岛屿种群进行的，这些蜥蜴非常适合进行大规模的自然选择研究。研究人员将使用他们的数据来测试相同的基因组区域是否有助于每个性别的适合度，测量这些基因在选择过程中受到性别差异的影响程度，并确定适合度的哪些组成部分(生存、生殖成功)会导致局灶内的性别冲突。

Males and females of the same species share a genome and express many of the same traits. However, the two sexes often experience dramatic differences in natural selection on these shared traits. This can create an evolutionary tug-of-war when a trait and its underlying genes are beneficial in one sex, but detrimental in the other. This study will investigate this selection conflict in brown anole lizards. Such conflict can occur in any species with separate sexes and is predicted to have important implications for the evolution of differences between males and females, systems of sex determination, and the maintenance of genetic variation. The researchers will genetically sequence individuals from a wild population with extreme sex differences to identify genomic regions that are subject to this selection conflict. In addition, this project will provide research training for undergraduate students and the research will be used as the basis for developing field-tested educational materials designed to build skills for data interpretation in the K-12 classroom.Despite its implications for so many major questions in biology, sexual conflict has rarely been demonstrated in wild populations, and we have yet to identify the actual regions of the genome that are subject to sexual conflict in natural populations. This project has three aims: (1) test for sex differences in natural selection on a variety of traits, (2) test for fitness costs of sexual conflict by measuring the extent to which the genetic basis of fitness is correlated between males and females, and (3) combine field estimates of fitness with large-scale genomic data and powerful statistical methods to uncover genomic regions associated with sexual conflict in a wild population of brown anole lizards (Anolis sagrei). This work is being conducted using an island population of more than a thousand adult lizards that is highly amenable to large-scale studies of natural selection. The researchers will use their data to test whether the same genomic regions contribute to fitness in each sex, to measure the extent to which these genes are subject to sex differences in selection, and to determine which components of fitness (survival, reproductive success) give rise to intralocus sexual conflict.