BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Connecting from genes to behavior during the diversification of 
 sea fireflies - Dr Nicholai Hensley\, Department of Zoology
DTSTART:20241029T130000Z
DTEND:20241029T140000Z
UID:TALK223882@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Henry North
DESCRIPTION:Every night\, Caribbean reefs are home to a massive variety of
  ostracod species (Luxorina\, Crustacea) which perform bioluminescent disp
 lays to attract mates\, analogous to terrestrial fireflies. Males swim up 
 from the benthos to secrete discrete sachets of cerulean slime into specie
 s-specific patterns that females use to track and follow them. In this tal
 k\, I summarise my and others' work highlighting our efforts to catalogue 
 this little-known but amazing diversity in order to understand the drivers
  and constraints to speciation. Over the past decade\, we have undertaken 
 extensive field sampling across 5 countries\, discovering ~50 new species.
  When comparing localities even within the same region with previously des
 cribed species\, biogeographic patterns show high endemism\, potentially d
 ue to low dispersal. To further understand the origins of this diversity\,
  I focused on candidate molecular mechanisms underpinning disparity in the
 ir mating displays\, which should be important during mate choice. From co
 mbining phylogenetics\, transcriptomics\, and in vitro protein assays\, cu
 rrent results suggest that rampant gene duplication and subsequent diverge
 nce has generated functional variation in the proteins responsible for cre
 ating light during bioluminescence. Changes in the function of these homol
 ogs during repeated bouts of speciation may prime this system for rapid ph
 enotypic evolution\, but muddies the water if predicting the locus of evol
 ution a priori. Despite this genetic redundancy\, physiological data hint 
 at constraints which may limit the mating display variation across species
 . Because the behaviour of these animals was only scientifically recorded 
 ca. 1980\, coupled with their small size (~2 mm) and restricted activity t
 o periods of darkest night\, Luxorine ostracods have a potentially widenin
 g Linnean shortfall with their degrading habitat. To bridge this\, future 
 work will focus on species description while connecting functional to phen
 otypic diversity\, and assessing how behaviour contributes to reproductive
  isolation in this charismatic clade.
LOCATION:Part II Lecture Theatre\, Department of Zoology
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR