Detoxifying alcohol in the wild- Investigating convergent evolution among butterflies feeding on fermenting fruits

Key innovations allow organisms to exploit novel resources fuelling rapid diversification.

Fermenting fruits have higher nutritional value, for example, than nectar, and their consumption provides higher fitness benefits.

However, the high alcohol concentration in fermenting fruits reaching up to 8% can be detrimental, making them a challenging resource.

Nevertheless, diverse animals feed and breed on fermenting fruits using the alcohol detoxification system, yet little is known about how this convergent phenotype evolved.

Such systems allow addressing key questions at the heart of evolutionary biology: what ecological drivers triggered shifts to feeding on fermenting fruits? Are such shifts key innovations?

At what level of genetic mechanism do the diverse animals feeding on fermenting fruits show convergence in the alcohol detoxification system?

These questions can only be answered using a large-scale, integrative and comparative evolutionary framework, yet studies remain focused on within populations of few taxa.

My proposal seeks to answer these outstanding questions using the rich model system of butterflies, to quantify the ecological and genetic mechanisms underlying diet evolution (fermenting fruits vs nectar).

My three main objectives are to: (1) Unravel the macroevolutionary patterns of convergence in dietary shifts and quantify impacts on diversification, (2) Conduct a comparative sequence analysis of the alcohol dehydrogenase gene and its enzyme across fruit and nectar feeders, and (3) Test hypotheses on the effects of dietary alcohol on fitness and gene expression in a fruit and nectar feeder.

I will integrate information on butterfly natural history with methods from comparative phylogenetics, genomics, and experimental approaches to achieve my objectives.

This fellowship will train me in precisely the technical and analytical techniques required for carrying out interdisciplinary research and advancing my career development as a leading scientist.