Presentation Type
Poster
Faculty Mentor’s Full Name
Zac Cheviron
Faculty Mentor’s Department
Biological Sciences
Abstract / Artist's Statement
Hybridization between species plays a very important role in the overall evolutionary history of many taxa. The study of hybrid zones can also provide insight into how species are responding to environmental factors such as climate change and changes in species interactions. The hybrid zone between the northern black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) and the southern Carolina chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) provides an insight into how hybridization is affecting two distinct species. As climate change worsens and Carolina chickadees are pushed more north to avoid sweltering temperatures, the hybrid zone is actively moving with them about 1 kilometer every year. Black-capped and Carolina hybrids have reduced fitness in the wild. Hybrids tend to have higher basal metabolic rates, less muscle growth, and less neuron growth to prepare for winter caching. There are genes that are not introgressed well into hybrids, and exploring why those genes are not introgressing could give an insight into why hybrids have such low survival rates. Our goal was to look at what functions those genes may have, and to see if the genes that don’t introgress have lots of differences between the two chickadee species. We used full genome transcripts from both black-capped and Carolina chickadees to look at the differences in the non-introgressing genes. Using a list of genes from the most to least non-introgressing, we pulled the top ten sequences from black-capped and Carolina transcripts and aligned them using the program Geneious. We also pulled ten random genes from the full transcripts to align and compare as a control. We calculated the percent that matched in nucleotides for each alignment. After getting this percentage, we calculated the mean percent for both the top ten non-introgressing genes and the ten random genes. The mean percent for the top ten genes was 97.5%, and the mean for the random genes was 98.7%. After determining that the data set did not follow a normal distribution using the Shapiro-Wilks tests, we used a Wilcoxon ranked sum test to calculate a p-value. With a p-value of 0.0169, the difference in means between the two gene sets is significant. This suggests that there might be some differences in the genes that do not allow them to be inherited by hybrids, and it upholds reproductive isolation between the black-capped and Carolina chickadee species.
Category
Life Sciences
Comparing Differences for Non-Introgressing Genes in Chickadees
UC South Ballroom
Hybridization between species plays a very important role in the overall evolutionary history of many taxa. The study of hybrid zones can also provide insight into how species are responding to environmental factors such as climate change and changes in species interactions. The hybrid zone between the northern black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) and the southern Carolina chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) provides an insight into how hybridization is affecting two distinct species. As climate change worsens and Carolina chickadees are pushed more north to avoid sweltering temperatures, the hybrid zone is actively moving with them about 1 kilometer every year. Black-capped and Carolina hybrids have reduced fitness in the wild. Hybrids tend to have higher basal metabolic rates, less muscle growth, and less neuron growth to prepare for winter caching. There are genes that are not introgressed well into hybrids, and exploring why those genes are not introgressing could give an insight into why hybrids have such low survival rates. Our goal was to look at what functions those genes may have, and to see if the genes that don’t introgress have lots of differences between the two chickadee species. We used full genome transcripts from both black-capped and Carolina chickadees to look at the differences in the non-introgressing genes. Using a list of genes from the most to least non-introgressing, we pulled the top ten sequences from black-capped and Carolina transcripts and aligned them using the program Geneious. We also pulled ten random genes from the full transcripts to align and compare as a control. We calculated the percent that matched in nucleotides for each alignment. After getting this percentage, we calculated the mean percent for both the top ten non-introgressing genes and the ten random genes. The mean percent for the top ten genes was 97.5%, and the mean for the random genes was 98.7%. After determining that the data set did not follow a normal distribution using the Shapiro-Wilks tests, we used a Wilcoxon ranked sum test to calculate a p-value. With a p-value of 0.0169, the difference in means between the two gene sets is significant. This suggests that there might be some differences in the genes that do not allow them to be inherited by hybrids, and it upholds reproductive isolation between the black-capped and Carolina chickadee species.