The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.
This award will support a twenty-two-month research fellowship by Dr. Asher D. Cutter to work with Dr. Deborah Charlesworth at University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom.
Reproduction constitutes the principle determinant of organismal fitness and, therefore, a central theme in biology is devoted to understanding variation in the mode of reproduction and its effects within and among species. Different modes of reproduction are expected to perturb population genetic patterns in evolutionarily important ways and genome-scale data from two or more related species that differ in key characteristics makes feasible evolutionarily motivated comparative studies. This research is developing a comparative genomic context for studying breeding system evolution in Caenorhabditis by (1) generating gene sequences on a large scale for outbred members of this genus and (2) assaying population genetic variation within and among species of Caenorhabditis from natural samples. A survey of expressed sequence tags (EST) from the outbred C. remanei and C. japonica (outgroup) is being conducted for comparison with each other and with genes from the inbred, fully sequenced genomes of C. elegans and C. briggsae. With these data, molecular evolution analyses test for differences in patterns of codon usage and constraints on gene function. Furthermore, surveys nucleotide polymorphism for autosomal, sex-linked, and mitochondrial genes for species of Caenorhabditis from natural populations in Europe generate a much-needed population genetic perspective for this group of model organisms that helps clarify the influence of variation in breeding system.
