Species are delineated on the basis of their shared evolutionary histories, but whenever they have been examined in detail, they show variation across their ranges. If this variation represents fine-scale adaptation to local conditions, adaptation at the overall species level may be hindered. The project entails examining this issue by characterizing the evolutionary patterns in snake venoms across and within species. Snake venoms are ideal for studying adaptation because of their evolutionarily significant roles in feeding and defense and their potential for specialization for local prey species. The venoms of 10 species of snake native to the United States will be completely characterized by cutting-edge molecular techniques for study of species-level adaptive evolution, and venom variation within three of these species will be quantified for study of fine-scale adaptation.
This research will provide an unprecedented characterization of snake venoms and their geographic variation for some of the most medically significant species native to the United States, contributing to our understanding of adaptive evolution. Snakebites cause an estimated 125,000 deaths per year worldwide, and the development and improvement of treatments for them will benefit from this detailed molecular characterization of venom composition. Because of the targets of snake-venom toxins and their shared ancestry with proteins involved in basic biological processes and human disease, the results of the project could strongly influence drug design and treatment for pain, inflammation, arthritis, cancer, heart attacks, and strokes.
