Genetic basis of eye and pigment loss in the cave crustacean, Asellus aquaticus.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the process of evolution is one of the great challenges in biology. Cave animals are one group with immense potential to address the mechanisms of evolutionary change. Amazingly, similar morphological alterations, such as enhancement of sensory systems and the loss of eyes and pigmentation, have evolved multiple times in a diverse assemblage of cave animals. Our goal is to develop an invertebrate model to study cave evolution so that, in combination with a previously established vertebrate cave system, we can address genetic questions concerning evolutionary parallelism and convergence. We chose the isopod crustacean, Asellus aquaticus, and generated a genome-wide linkage map for this species. Our map, composed of 117 markers, of which the majority are associated with genes k

SUBMITTER: Protas ME 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3078413 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature