Different animals often evolve similar adaptations, reflecting similar functional pressures acting on different species. This phenomenon is known as convergent evolution and, although it has been widely acknowledged by biologists for more than a century, its genetic and molecular basis remains poorly understood. Our previous work has shown that seemingly identical traits can evolve by changes in different genes in different species. In this project, a combination of genomic, molecular-genetic, embryological, and comparative approaches will be used to identify the responsible genes in each of several independent cases where similar traits have evolved. Two key questions will be addressed by this work. First, what features of animal development allow it to translate different genetic changes into outwardly identical morphological characters? Second, since evolution can clearly take different genetic paths to produce the same trait, is the course it actually takes determined primarily by the intrinsic features of the organism, by its population history, or by the vagaries of chance that are known to play a large role in the origin of genetic variation? As synthetic biology (the design or artificial biological organisms with desirable properties) begins to move from speculation to reality, understanding the flexible wiring of natural genetic pathways that permits multiple solutions to the same functional problem will inform the design of synthetic gene networks. The wide variety of techniques and integrative approaches used in this project will advance the training of young scientists who will be able to understand the inner workings of biological systems and to apply these lessons to practical problems.
