Evolution of vision and adaptations to the deep-sea in gastropods

Project overview

With their impressive diversity of eye morphology, gastropods are emerging as valuable models to study the evolution of vision in line with environmental constraints. However, little is known about the molecular underpinnings of eye evolution in this group.

Taking advantage of Museum collections, the PhD student will document eye morphology evolution across the gastropod clade to reveal major shifts in eye morphology. These results will be analysed in the light of the growing wealth of genomic resources available for gastropods – including genomes from the Darwin Tree Of Life project, to investigate the contribution of gene gains and losses to these morphological changes.

This gastropod-wide investigation will be complemented by an in-depth study of the family Solariellidae, a clade of marine snails distributed globally from the intertidal down to the abyssal ocean.

Exploratory studies of their eye morphology have led to the discovery that eyes have been lost multiple times within the family during adaptations to deep-sea environments. This is also accompanied by loss of pigmentation and changes in shell patterns. Genomic and transcriptomic datasets for 7 Solariallidae species will be newly-generated and analysed, with the aim to decipher the molecular signatures of eye loss and adaptations to the deep-sea.

Altogether, results will shed light on the contribution of gene losses and expression changes to organ degeneration and reveal key genes implicated in eye function in an emerging and under-appreciated study system.

Project Specific Training

Opportunity to obtain training in bioinformatics (one-to-one) and phylogenetics (lab members and Pr. Yang and Pr. Telford groups nearby) as well as hands on molecular biology (one-to-one). Possibly to attend some workshops (e.g. Phylalia course).