Associate Professor of Biology and Entomology Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania
Bumble bees exhibit exceptional color pattern diversity as a result of extensive divergence and convergence driven by Mullerian mimicry. The ample variation and convergent replicates of this system enables discovery of how genetic changes translate to evolved phenotypic changes, the propensity of the genome to change, and how alleles sort from microevolutionary to macroevolutionary scales. The talk describes the discovery of genes implicated in convergent color diversification in mimetic bumble bees of the Western United States, describing how these bees have diversified and the genetics underlying repeated acquisition of these mimetic and highly modular color pattern phenotypes. Upstream genomic targets are identified in two species undergoing parallel color changes using genome-wide association analysis. Transcriptomics is applied towards understanding the series of downstream targets that lead to pigment changes, genes which could be alternative targets in other mimetic species. Data thus far supports parallel evolution of these color changes, implicating the highly conserved Hox genes as repeated targets enabling this segmental color diversity. The talk features principles gained in evolutionary genetics and evo-devo while sharing the evolutionary story of this burgeoning non-model system.
