Genomic insights into the (repeated) evolution of electric organs in fishes

Electric organs have evolved six or seven times in fishes to produce electric fields used in communication, navigation, predation, and in some cases, defense. In my laboratory, we are interested in two fundamental questions: the origins of what Charles Darwin once called this ‘wondrous organ’, and how it has diversified in form and function within each of these groups.  My laboratory’s recent research efforts have focused on the generation and analysis of a wide variety of genomic and transcriptomic datasets from major lineages of electric fishes using NGS platforms.  First, I will discuss our efforts to characterize similarities in gene-expression between lineages of electric fish.  Our results indicate that independent lineages of electric fish have leveraged similar transcription factors and developmental and cellular pathways in the evolution of electric organs.  Second, I will discuss our more recent efforts to examine genomic signatures of electric signal evolution in one lineage of electric fishes of the family Mormyridae, which produce species-specific electric discharges for communication.  This diversity of electric discharges has been of great importance in the evolution of a rapidly evolved "species flock" of mormyrids in the genus Paramormyrops.