Meeting Abstract

S10-2.1  Monday, Jan. 7  Multiple mechanisms of eye reduction within a single population of the cave crustacean, Asellus aquaticus PROTAS, M. E.*; TRONTELJ, P.; PATEL, N. H.; Univ. of California, San Francisco; University of Ljubljana; Univ. of California, Berkeley ProtasM@vision.ucsf.edu

Cave animals are an amazing group of organisms. Cave dwelling animals can have the following characteristics: reduced eyes, reduced pigmentation, longer life span, decreased metabolic rate, elongated appendages, and enhanced sensory systems. These characteristics can be found in animals as diverse as salamanders, fish, spiders and crustaceans. We investigated the genetic basis of morphological evolution in a particular cave animal, an isopod crustacean, Asellus aquaticus. There are both surface and cave forms of A. aquaticus that are able to interbreed and produce fertile offspring. We brought these animals to the lab and ultimately set up backcrosses between the cave and surface forms. We generated genetic markers, a subset associated with candidate genes involved in eye, pigment, and appendage development, and genotyped the backcrosses for these markers generating a linkage map. We mapped several regions of the genome responsible for eye size and eye pigmentation traits and found multiple mechanisms responsible for both eye and pigment regression within a single cave population.