Sexual behavior and ornaments used to attract the opposite sex are varied across the animal kingdom. Early exposure to certain environments can switch the developmental program and alter the outcome of these adult sexual ornaments and behaviors within a species. A remaining scientific mystery is how these cues from the outside environment are translated to the inside of the animal. Hormones, especially those produced by the gonads, play a crucial function in changing the development of brains, sexual ornaments and behaviors. However, hormones are only half the story. Hormones reach every cell in the body, but the developmental systems are only sensitive to hormones if they express hormone receptors to bind with the hormones into active complexes. Thus, the dynamics between hormones and hormone receptors can regulate when and how developmental trajectories change. This proposal aims to discover how these hormone signaling systems produce different sexual behaviors and ornaments in response to changes in the environment. The work will be carried out in the emerging model system, the squinting bush brown butterfly, Bicyclus anynana. This species displays a sex role reversal in courtship, mate preference and sexual ornaments depending on the external temperature the young insect experiences.
The outcomes of this work will influence the many researchers interested in linking developmental dynamics to behavior and morphology thereby pushing forward our understanding of organisms as integrated systems. The project will involve training a post-doctoral researcher, a graduate student, and undergraduates in integrating cross-disciplinary techniques (biology, chemistry, and physics) into an evolutionary framework for understanding organisms as complex systems across their development. Current collaborators include members of the Yale Physics Department and the Medical School. To reach beyond the academy, the project will include development of an interactive educational module using a digital photo database to demonstrate the role of sexual selection and butterfly wing pattern evolution and to crowd source new discoveries in the evolution of sexual signals and butterfly wing patterns. This approach will be developed with the assistance of Yale computer science undergraduates and beta tested with the Peabody Museum's "Evolutions" science outreach program to minority high school students before being released more widely to high school educators and their students.
