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The funded project “Ontogeny and evolution: parallel cooption of developmental pathways in the adaptive evolution of the visual system of Neotropical cichlid fish in recently colonized crater lakes” aims to determine if parallel phenotypic evolution in the visual system of closely related species of Nicaraguan Midas cichlid fishes is underpinned by genetic parallelisms originated from the cooption of common developmental pathways.

“Parallel evolution, where independent lineages show similar adaptive responses to similar environmental challenges, has been extensively documented at the phenotypic level, but in few cases the underlying molecular mechanisms have been identified”, explains Julián. “The visual system provides a great opportunity to address this issue as we have a very good understanding of the phenotypic consequences of molecular changes. I propose to use a combination of forward and reverse genetics to answer the main question of this project.”