Research Symposium

BIO

I am a second-year student currently volunteering with FSU's Lemmon Lab to study speciation in chorus frogs. This involvement has allowed me to enhance my knowledge in biological computing as well as data analytics in order to further understand phylogenetics. I have always had a strong interest in wildlife biology and aim to continue developing myself as a researcher here at FSU. With future plans to pursue a career in wildlife veterinary medicine, I hope to build a strong background in animal research so that I can treat my future patients to the best of my ability.

Genetic Variation Within The GABA Receptor In Pseudacris And Its Impact On Speciation

Abstract

This study uses Pseudacris nigrita and Pseudacris ferarium, more commonly known as chorus frogs, to examine candidate genes that lead to differences in neurological response to mating call stimuli. Specific focus is being placed on the GABA-A neuroreceptor region which is known to affect responsiveness to auditory stimuli. We sequenced DNA reads from a sample of seventeen Pseudacris and aligned them with one another. Heterozygosity tests were run using the Geneious Prime application to determine potential genetic variation. The results proved similar to the hypothesized outcome where there was some nucleotide variation among the several Pseudacris samples, but no amino acid variation. These results were expected because significant amino acid variation would likely cause drastic differences in neurological response that would be uncommon for Pseudacris individuals. The findings of this study open up further questions concerning the consistency of these findings across other GABA subunits, as well as other neuroreceptors such as AMPA and NMDA. There are also opportunities to compare this genetic variation to the same genes in humans to determine if these findings can also be extrapolated to human speciation. These findings set a precedent for future research to determine how genetic variation can contribute to the neurological processes responsible for sexual selection, and how this can affect the evolution of a species as a whole.

Keywords: Evolution, Genetic Variation, Biology, DNA Sequencing, Neuroreceptors