Meeting Abstract
31.5 Sunday, Jan. 5 09:00 Dynamic gene expression and rates of gene evolution underlying divergence in a cichlid key innovation CLEMMENSEN, S.F.*; HULSEY, C.D.; University of Tennessee, Knoxville; University of Tennessee, Knoxville sclemmen@utk.edu
Trophic divergence in cichlid fish is linked to shifts in pharyngeal jaw morphology. The changes in the genetic and developmental architecture underlying this key innovation are largely unknown. Gene expression plasticity, or the differences in gene expression in response to changes in environment, may have large effects on the rate of gene evolution. Using next-gen whole transcriptome sequencing, we measured shifts in gene expression in the muscular sling of the cichlid pharyngeal jaw in response to a diet shift in lab-reared cichlids. We examined the relationship between changes in gene expression and the rate of sequence evolution (dN/dS) among genes to determine if genes with high differential expression showed more adaptive divergence than did genes with low differential expression.
