New NSF award to support collaborative research

Organismal fitness - the ability of an individual to survive and reproduce - is a complex trait, one that can be further decomposed into a number of components, such as viability and mating success. Each of these components are themselves impacted by an array of environmental and genetic factors. Given this complexity, we remain largely ignorant of the biological mechanisms underpinning fitness variation among individuals, impeding our understanding of natural selection.

Recently, a collaborative team of researchers from the Departments of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Molecular Biosciences - Drs. John Kelly, Rob Unckless and Stuart Macdonald - were awarded an NSF EDGE (Enabling Discovery through GEnomics) grant to study the genetic basis of male fitness variation, leveraging the powerful Drosophila fruit fly model system (EDGE CMT: The genomic basis of male fitness variation in wild populations of Drosophila, Award Number 2421689).

The project will marry fieldwork, experimental laboratory genetics, massive-scale genome sequencing, and powerful computational analyses to dissect fitness differences among individuals into its many distinct genetic causes. Furthermore, by linking DNA sequence variants to their effects on survival, mating success, and competition among gametes the team will begin to uncover those genes and genetic events that impact fitness in natural populations. The work is made possible by the complementary expertise of the three research leaders - in population, quantitative, and computational genetics/genomics - and will provide many opportunities for trainees to gain valuable, hands-on experience in genetics.