Dr. Jenn Coughlan University of North Carolina Chapel Hill The dual role of parental conflict in speciation: Lessons from Mimulus Abstract: A fundamental source of conflict in viviparous organisms stems from differences between maternal and paternal interests in resource allocation to offspring (i.e. parental conflict). Under parental conflict, variance in paternity drives the evolution of paternally derived, resource-acquiring alleles, and maternally derived alleles that distribute resources equally among offspring. In hybrids, mismatches between these parent-of-origin effect alleles can cause inappropriate development of essential nutritive tissues (e.g. placenta or endosperm), and subsequently embryo death. Here, I test the role of parental conflict in generating one of the most common intrinsic barriers in seed plants- Hybrid Seed Inviability (HSI)-using members of the evolutionary and ecological model system; the Mimulus guttatus species complex. I show that HSI has evolved rapidly and repeatedly in this group, and patterns of HSI conform to the predictions of parental conflict. Additionally, genetic mapping suggests that HSI is conferred by nuclear, parent-of-origin effect loci (i.e. loci that affect the probability of death only if maternally or paternally derived). Lastly, using a series of natural surveys and mixed pollination crosses, I find that species with different histories of parental conflict frequently co-occur and hybridize, and hybridization between species with differing histories of parental conflict can indirectly influence growth in non-hybrid seeds. Overall, this work highlights a dual role of parental conflict in the speciation process; both in the origin of reproductive isolation, but also in the dynamics and outcomes of hybridization in nature.
Bio: Jenn Coughlan is an evolutionary geneticist and evolutionary ecologist whose research program revolves around adaptation and speciation in nature. Jenn's work integrates fieldwork, manipulative experiments, quantitative genetics and population genomics to study both plant and animal systems. Jenn got her start at Trent University before moving to the University of Toronto for an MSc. She then completed a PhD at Duke University with John Willis before her current postdoc with Daniel Matute at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Jenn is currently gearing up to start her own research group in summer of 2022 in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at Yale University. Comments are closed.
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