Evolutionary Genomics & Animal Behavior
Animals have adapted to a myriad of environments and display an astonishing amount of diversity in both morphology and behavior. Ultimately, this diversity came to be via the processes of adaptation and speciation and is due to random genetic mutations. This makes it such an exciting time to be an evolutionary biologist, because our ability to generate and analyze genomic data –and thereby identify genetic variants that matter and uncover how they act– is becoming ever more powerful.
What we do
In the Kautt Lab, we seek to…
- identify genetic variants that affect phenotypic variation
- elucidate molecular mechanisms that translate genotypic to phenotypic variation
- investigate how animal behaviors evolve, with a focus on behaviors mediated by the chemosensory system
- make the connections between phenotypic variation and evolutionary fitness
- understand when and why populations become separate species
How we do it
…using an integrative approach
- Comparative and population genomics to screen for genetic variants of interest and reconstruct evolutionary histories
- Transcriptomics to quantify gene expression and gain insights into gene regulation
- Molecular and functional experiments to investigate / test mechanisms
- Behavioral assays to characterize and quantify variation
- Fieldwork to study organisms in their natural environment
