Meeting: Catalysis Meeting

Genome-enabled Research on Manakins


Date16-Jan-2013 ~ 18-Jan-2013
ProjectGenome-enabled Research on Manakins
SummarySexual selection produces a diversity of traits not explainable by natural selection. Birds in the family Pipridae (manakins) are remarkable for their elaborate and acrobatic courtship displays, anatomical and behavioral novelties, striking male coloration, and complex social behaviors—all traits that are generated by intense sexual selection in these lek-breeding species. These features have attracted researchers from such disparate fields as breeding and foraging ecology, neuromuscular physiology, anatomy, social behavior, communication and speciation, who largely have worked independently to date. The recent advent of genomic technologies that are readily applied to free-living organisms provides a nexus around which disparate biological domains can be integrated and the opportunity to make manakins a coherent model clade in which to study the pervasive effects of sexual selection. The proposed catalysis meeting will unite efforts of the diverse group of scientists already working on manakins with pioneers in the application of genomic approaches in traditional model systems. The meeting will chart a strategy to systematically develop genomic resources for manakins and facilitate large-scale collaborative investigations of manakin biology across many hierarchical levels of organization. Our goal is to transform current independent research on manakins into an interactive, synthetic enterprise that will reveal how sexual selection acts at the genomic level to influence the evolution of many biological phenomena.