Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara, Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology
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Origin Stories: The unexpected history of an aesthetic radiation of bioluminescent crustaceans
Tuesday, February 19
12 PM
AHF 153 (Torrey Webb Room)
Abstract: Bioluminescence is an ecologically impactful phenotype often used in communication, including courtship signals whose origins increase rates of speciation. Because bioluminescence is strongly influenced by few or even single genes, learning how those genes originate is critical for understanding how genetic changes impact diversification. One origin of bioluminescence occurred in cypridinid ostracods (Crustacea), which employ complex courtship displays that differ among dozens of species from the Caribbean. Cypridinid bioluminescence involves c- luciferase enzymes , which contain only two deeply conserved sequences. I will discuss the unexpected history of this gene, including a proliferation of its constituent domains, which predates the inferred origin of cypridinid bioluminescence. Although we still have much t o learn about gene function , this mode of gene origin may be similar to Innovation Amplification Duplication (IAD), but with different timing . In this case, Amplification began before functional Innovation and gene Duplication events (AID). This order of events has implications for mechanisms of molecular evolution. These results illustrate how contingent, unpredictable genetic histories might contribute to ecologically impactful phenotypes.
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