Prof Kerry Shaw

The observation that sexual signals, and associated preferences, diverge rapidly among closely related species suggests that signal-preference co-evolution is a common occurrence in animal populations.  In Hawaiian crickets, songs and acoustic preferences diverge coincident with speciation, as is true with most, if not all, animals that communicate acoustically during courtship.  To characterize the genomic architecture of pulse rate and pulse rate preference variation between two closely related species of Laupala crickets, we combine quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping studies of F2 hybrids with specific introgression lines along with transcriptomic results.   We find that male pulse rate QTL co-localize in the genome with female preference QTL in three fine-mapping analyses of separate linkage groups (chromosomes).  We go on to identify candidate genes underlying acoustic behavior in these regions.  Differential expression of some of these candidate genes is discussed.