Panning for evolutionary gold in threespine sticklebacks: why are there nuggets and why do the nuggets recur?

The genetic and molecular mechanisms that underlie the amazing diversity of living species have long been uncertain and contentious. We have developed stickleback fish as a model system to reveal how new traits evolve in natural populations. Our genetic studies show that dramatic changes in morphology, color, and disease susceptibility can be mapped to major chromosomal loci. Detailed genomic studies reveal how nature can either add or subtract the anatomical structures seen in wild organisms by gains and losses of the coding or regulatory regions of key developmental control genes. In the first lecture, I will focus on principles of evolutionary recurrence: Why do we find particular loci being used to evolve major changes, and why does evolution tend to use the same genes repeatedly to evolve similar traits in many different species? In the second lecture, I will focus on evolution and disease susceptibility. Our recent work in sticklebacks has identified surprising connections between herpes viruses, pox viruses, novel host resistance mechanisms, and evolution of new host defense loci. The mechanisms involved appear common to many other host-pathogen interactions, including those affecting both aquaculture and human disease. 

Speaker: David Kingsley, Stanford University