The evolutionary genomics of accurate learning

Robert Lachlan (primary)
School of Biological and Chemical Sciences
Queen Mary University of London
David Clayton (secondary)
School of Biological and Chemical Sciences
Queen Mary University of London

Abstract

Bird song represents an unusual opportunity to examine the evolution of cultural behaviour in an animal model. Recent work by the Primary Supervisor’s group has discovered that closely related yet genetically isolated populations of chaffinches vary greatly in the precision with which they learn songs. Previous work, pioneered by the Secondary supervisor, has led to a detailed understanding of the neurogenomic basis of bird song learning (but largely restricted to just one species). In this project, the student will use evolutionary genomics to combine these two strands of research to examine the genomic bases for evolution in song learning abilities.


References

1. Clayton, D. F., Balakrishnan, C. N. & London, S. E. Integrating Genomes, Brain and Behavior Review in the Study of Songbirds. Current Biology 19, R865-R873 (2009).
2. Warren, W. C. et al. The genome of a songbird. Nature 464, 757-762 (2010).
3. Drnevich, J. et al. Impact of experience-dependent and -independent factors on gene expression in songbird brain. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 109 Suppl 2, 17245-17252 (2012).
4. Zhang, G., Jarvis, E. D. & Gilbert, M. A flock of genomes. Science (2014).
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7. Catchpole, C. K. & Slater, P. J. B. Bird song: biological themes and variations. (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
8. Lachlan, R. F. et al. The progressive loss of syntactical structure in bird song along an island colonization chain. Current Biology 23, 1896-1901 (2013).
9. Lachlan, R. F. & Slater, P. J. B. Song learning by chaffinches: how accurate, and from where? Anim. Behav. 65, 957-969 (2003).
10. Lynch, A. & Baker, A. J. A population memetics approach to cultural evolution in chaffinch song: meme diversity within populations. Am. Nat. 141, 597-620 (1993).
11. Lachlan, R.F. (In prep) Inference of song learning precision in island and mainland chaffinches reveals rapid evolution of song learning abilities.
12. Cooper, J.E. & Lachlan, R.F. (In prep) Evolution of developmental trajectories in island populations of chaffinches.


BBSRC Area
Animal disease, health and welfare
Area of Biology
EvolutionNeurobiology
Techniques & Approaches
BioinformaticsGeneticsMathematics / StatisticsSimulation / Modelling