Meeting Abstract
Tremendous change in head shape morphology has accompanied the repeated and independent invasion of oceanic threespine stickleback into freshwater habitats. Evolution of the opercle (OP) bone shape is particularly important to adaptation to different habitats because of the profound effects on feeding mechanics. Much has been learned about the development of the OP in zebrafish, but little is known about what the genes are that underlie OP shape change or how variation in those genes alter developmental processes to give rise to OP shape changes in stickleback evolution. We use two populations of stickleback, with variable OP morphologies, that are separated by age and geography to identify if the genomic regions underlying parallel OP shape evolution is characterized by parallel genomic evolution and to identify the genes associated with OP shape change through genome wide association (GWA). Furthermore, we use lab populations of Alaskan oceanic and freshwater stickleback with fixed OP shapes to identify differences in bone outgrowth, cellular behavior, and gene expression through development that may contribute to OP shape change.
