Meeting Abstract
Stressors during development can influence physiology, phenotype, and ultimately fitness later in life. Such development programming can be both adaptive by preparing organisms to deal with environmental conditions later on, or it can be maladaptive by constraining organismal phenotypes no matter the type of environment experienced as adults. Although epigenetic changes that alter the structure of DNA are thought to be one of the primary mechanisms that underlie developmental programming, we lack a general understanding of how early life stressors impact epigenetic changes in the genome. Using superb starlings (Lamprotornis superbus), which inhabit a range of East African environments where conditions vary unpredictably from year-to-year, I will explore how early life conditions influence epigenetic programming. I will discuss how patterns of DNA methylation across the entire starling genome vary with rainfall during development, discussing the gene regulatory networks that show signatures of adaptive capacity versus those that show signatures of being constrained by early life conditions. Taking a more fine-scale approach, I will then focus on a suite of genes known to be related to stress and reproduction to determine how epigenetic programming acts at different scales to potentially alter physiology and fitness. Ultimately, I will not only illustrate the different ways that variable early life conditions shape patterns of DNA methylation across the genome, but I will develop an evolutionary framework for understanding adaptation and constraint in the context of developmental and epigenetic programming.
