The contribution of the developmental hierarchy on morphological diversification

• Grant number: 14/23504-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: March 01, 2015
• End date: June 03, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Morphology of Recent Groups
• Agreement: Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)
• Principal Investigator: André Victor Lucci Freitas
• Grantee: Leila Teruko Shirai
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biologia (IB). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 17/12716-1 - The contribution of the developmental hierarchy to morphological diversification, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

Understanding the mechanisms responsible for morphological evolution relies on knowledge of how genetic variation is translated during development, under the influence of the environment, into phenotypic variation. Which ontogenetic aspects influence the generation of morphological variation that has evolutionary significance? Specifically, we ask: does each stage in the developmental hierarchy contribute equally or not to morphological diversification? The aims of this project are to test whether: 1) particular stages of development determine the formation of different characters, using mutants as phenotypic variants; and 2) different characters, and thus different stages, differentially contributed to the evolution of a morphologically diverse and ecologically relevant structure: eyespots found in butterfly wings. To address these questions we use methods from Developmental and Evolutionary Biology: 1) differences in gene expression for all developmental stages between mutants and wild types, using transcriptomes (RNA-Seq) that capture global expression levels without the candidate genes' bias for three mutants, each representative of a particular stage of development; and 2) character mapping for all eyespot traits, and corresponding hierarchical stages, into the phylogeny, analyzing correlated evolutionary histories and rates of diversification for this structure. The complementarity of the objectives and results coming from experimental and empirical research is novel and aims at contributing to the knowledge of the developmental basis of biological evolution. (AU)

Scientific publications

(4)

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

SHIRAI, LEILA T.; BARBOSA, EDUARDO P.; GREVE, ROBERTO R.; MAGALDI, LUIZA M.; NASCIMENTO, ANDRE R.; FREITAS, ANDRE V. L.. Natural History of Selenophanes cassiope guarany (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae: Brassolini): an Integrative Approach, From Molecules to Ecology. Annals of the Entomological Society of America, v. 110, n. 2, p. 145-159, MAR 2017. (13/50297-0, 15/17046-9, 11/50225-3, 15/24663-4, 12/03750-8, 12/50260-6, 14/23504-7)

SHIRAI, L. T.; MACHADO, P. A.; MOTA, L. L.; ROSA, A. H. B.; FREITAS, A. V. L.. DNB, THE DATABASE OF NYMPHALIDS IN BRAZIL, WITH A CHECKLIST FOR STANDARDIZED SPECIES LISTS. JOURNAL OF THE LEPIDOPTERISTS' SOCIETY, v. 73, n. 2, p. 93-108, JUN 11 2019. (11/50225-3, 12/50260-6, 13/50297-0, 14/23504-7)

ROSSER, NEIL; SHIRAI, LEILA T.; DASMAHAPATRA, KANCHON K.; MALLET, JAMES; FREITAS, ANDRE V. L.. The Amazon river is a suture zone for a polyphyletic group of co-mimetic heliconiine butterflies. ECOGRAPHY, v. 44, n. 2, NOV 2020. (11/50225-3, 12/50260-6, 14/23504-7)

SHIRAI, LEILA T.; SILVA, RENATO O.; DIAS, FERNANDO M. S.; ROCHELLE, ANDRE L. C.; FREITAS, ANDRE V. L.. The butterflies (Lepidoptera, Papilionoidea) of the Parque Estadual Intervales and surroundings, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Biota Neotropica, v. 23, n. 2, p. 22-pg., 2023-01-01. (14/23504-7, 21/03868-8)