Despite the morphological novelty of the wing among insects, its evolutionary origin is still a highly controversial topic among the scientific community. Recently, some evo-devo studies have started shedding new light onto this hotly debated topic. However, these studies have used highly derived insects as their models, and therefore it is yet to be determined if the findings in these insects truly reflect the evolutionary process that facilitated the emergence of insect wings. Given the potential for evolutionary changes in developmental mechanisms, it is important to analyze a wide variety of insects from many different taxa to gain a less biased view of the ancestral mode of wing development. To achieve this goal, we propose to use the giant mayfly, Hexagenia limbata, to investigate the evolutionary origin of insect wings. H. limbata belongs to one of the most basal group of insects, making this species an excellent candidate for our study. In this project, we will perform the detailed morphological analysis of wing-related tissues of H. limbata. We will also use a quantitative gene expression analysis to evaluate the serial homology among the wing-related tissues. Given the basal phylogeny of H. limbata, the knowledge gained from this project will further our understanding of the emergence of wings in the ancestral insect.
Author: Evan A. “Gus” Martin
Faculty Advisor: Kevin Deem and Yoshinori Tomoyasu, Department of Biology
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