Meeting Abstract

S5.7  Monday, Jan. 5  Pecking at the Origin of Vertebrate Diversity ABZHANOV, Arhat; Harvard University, Cambridge abzhanov@fas.harvard.edu

The faces of vertebrates are often readily recognizable as they display a number of species-specific characteristics. It is likely that this stunning diversity of cranial morphology in vertebrates was generated by alterations in craniofacial development. We are employing a combination of genetic, genomic, molecular, bioinformatics, 2-D and 3-D imaging and modeling approaches to understand evolution of craniofacial structures, such as highly adaptive beak morphology in such species as Darwins Finches (a classic example of species multiplication and diversification caused by natural selection) and their relatives and African Seedcrackers (textbook example of adaptive polymorphism), and other avian and reptilian species. The major goal of these studies is to use both novel approaches and well-studied evolutionary examples to address some of the long-standing questions in animal development and evolution.