NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2020: Investigation of the Ancestral Modulation Rule, a Proposed Rule for Reversal of Sex-biased Traits

这项行动资助了2020财年的NSF生物学博士后研究奖学金，综合研究调查了基因组，环境和表型之间的生命相互作用的规则。该研究金支持研究员的研究和培训，以创新的方式为生活规则领域做出贡献。倾向于一种交配类型或另一种交配类型的显著多样性特征往往被低估和忽视。在同一物种中具有交配型偏好的性状，在不同物种中几乎都具有相反的交配型偏好。这位研究员提出了一个想法，即这些逆转的进化历史预测了负责表达交配类型偏好特征的生理，遗传和行为途径。这项研究将促进了解交配型偏向性状是如何发展的，并可用于解释交配型偏向性状在物种内和物种间的多样性。该研究员将致力于开发教育材料，以学生可以自己发现想法的方式呈现行为和进化主题，使受试者更加平易近人。交配类型偏向的表型最终会反馈到进化驱动多样性甚至物种形成，因此需要一个研究偏向性状进化的框架。这样一个总体框架将具有预测能力，即使在模式不明显的情况下，也可以在许多物种中提出可检验的假设。该研究员提出的祖先调制规则，汇集了明显不同的结果，确定了明显反向偏置表型的进化起源时间，作为两种基本机制模式中哪一种应该进化的解释。当一个交配型偏向的性状重新出现时，新的途径和基因被选择，因此依赖于交配型典型激素（改变控制假设）;然而，当偏向的性状与祖先的偏向相反时，对传统调节激素的敏感性增加，（改变的敏感性假说），从而保留了祖先的遗传框架，并可能作为一个返祖性状的塑料对环境的反应。该研究员将使用几种鱼类（慈鲷和gouramis），这些鱼类经历了交配类型偏向特征（育雏，侵略和抑制）的转变，以测试祖先调制规则是否可以正确预测存在哪些激素控制机制。这项研究的结果将提供深入了解交配型偏向性状的驱动因素和后果，特别是逆转交配型偏向性状，从而增加对交配型偏向性状进化的理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2020, Integrative Research Investigating the Rules of Life Governing Interactions Between Genomes, Environment and Phenotypes. The fellowship supports a research and training of the Fellow that will contribute to the area of Rules of Life in innovative ways. The remarkable diversity of characteristics biased toward one mating type or the other is underappreciated and often overlooked. Almost every trait with mating type-bias in one species can be found with the opposite mating type-bias in a different species. The fellow proposes to test an idea that the evolutionary history of these reversals predicts the physiological, genetic, and behavioral pathways that are responsible for the expression of a mating type-biased trait. This research will advance understanding of how mating type-biased traits develop and can be used to explain the diversity of mating type-biased traits within and across species. The Fellow will work to develop educational materials that present behavioral and evolutionary themes in ways that students can discover ideas for themselves so that the subjects are more approachable.Mating type-biased phenotypes ultimately feed back into evolution driving diversity and even speciation, thereby necessitating the need for a framework for studying biased trait evolution. Such an overarching framework would have predictive power to suggest testable hypotheses in numerous species even in cases where the patterns are not obvious. The Fellow’s proposed ancestral modulation rule, brings together apparently disparate results, identifying the time of evolutionary origin of the apparently reversed-biased phenotype as the explanation for which of two underlying mechanistic patterns should evolve. When a mating type-biased trait emerges de novo, new pathways and genes are co-opted and therefore rely on the mating type-typical hormones (altered control hypothesis); however, when the biased trait is reversed from the ancestral bias, increased sensitivity to the traditionally regulating hormone will evolve (altered sensitivity hypothesis) thereby preserving the ancestral genetic framework and possibly the plastic response to the environment as an atavistic trait. The Fellow will use several species of fishes (cichlids and gouramis) that have undergone shifts in mating type-biased traits (brood care, aggression, and ornamentation) to test if the ancestral modulation rule can correctly predict which hormonal control mechanisms are present. Results of this study will provide insight into the drivers and consequences of mating type-biased traits generally and reversed mating type-biased traits specifically, leading to an increased understanding of mating type-biased trait evolution. Educational outreach will be conducted as part of the project.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.