Replicability of adaptive divergence at broad taxonomic scales: What can butterflies teach us about frogs? – RANAPOSA

If distantly related species are exposed to the same selective pressures, do they evolve similar adaptive solutions? Why are some species better than others at exploiting ecological opportunities? These questions are crucial as they can provide important insights on how life has diversified on Earth, but also on how organisms may react in the face of future change. The following project proposes to investigate the genomic and phenotypic basis of adaptive divergence to explore an original premise: adaptive evolution and patterns of population divergence are replicable on a broad taxonomic scale. This project is unique in its aim to integrate ecological and behavioural experimentation, directly in the habitat, with state of the art genomic methods, in order to draw parallels between drastically distant Amazonian taxa, poison dart frogs and butterflies, for which warning colouration diversified in analogous selective landscapes.