Abstract
Sex chromosomes have evolved countless independent times throughout the eukaryotes, and represent a remarkable case of genomic convergence, as unrelated sex chromosomes share many properties across distant taxa. Sex chromosomes evolve once recombination is halted between a homologous pair of chromosomes, causing once identical chromosomes to diverge from one another. We have a nuanced understanding of what happens to sex chromosomes once recombination is arrested. What remains unclear is why sex chromosomes evolve in the first place. This project will address the nascent stages of sex chromosome evolution in cyprinodontiform fish, a remarkable group for the number of times that sex chromosomes have independently evolved.
References
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