Project goals, scope and methods: Research will involve a fine-scale geographic/genealogical study of three widely co-distributed groups of New Zealand cicadas using mitochondrial and nuclear genes. Analyses of these molecular data, in combination with courtship song and morphological differences, will improve understanding of how genetic differences among geographically isolated populations may eventually lead to speciation.
This study will provide a more complete picture of New Zealand cicada biodiversity. While mitochondrial gene techniques are well developed, those for nuclear genes lag behind. However, in the last few years, the availability of complete nuclear genome sequences for a variety of animals has revealed a large number of candidate genes that can be used for studying closely related taxa.
Broader significance: The longer-term goals of the project are to explore a broad range of important biological questions relating to: the origin, evolution, and spread of biological diversity; the evolution of life histories; the estimation of times of divergence in evolutionary trees; and application to genealogical tree-building. Trainees--including undergraduates, graduate and postdoctoral students--learn skills essential in population biology, e.g., specimen collection; database construction; collection and analysis of genetic and behavioral data; and written, oral, and web-based data dissemination.
