# Genetic origin, developmental mechanism, and evolutionary process of a novel phenotype in Mimulus (monkeyflowers)

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT STORRS · 2023 · $322,000

## Abstract

Project Summary
The emergence of qualitatively distinct new structures or patterns (e.g., turtle shells, beetle horns, butterfly
color patterns, plant flowers) is one of the most fascinating aspects of organismal evolution. How such
novel, complex traits have originated and evolved remains one of the most important yet challenging
problems of evolutionary biology. It is widely assumed that novel structures or patterns arise by co-option or
rewiring of pre-existing developmental programs, but we know very little about the specific genetic changes
that trigger such co-option or developmental rewiring, how the genetic changes translate to novel
phenotypes, what kind of developmental pre-settings or cryptic pre-patterns are required for the the trigger
gene(s) to produce the novel phenotype and how these cryptic pre-patterns come about, and how the novel
phenotypes rise in frequency in natural habitats (i.e., the evolutionary process). This project is to address
these fundamental questions by studying a novel, qualitatively distinct, pigmentation pattern that evolved
very recently in a wild population of Mimulus verbenaceus (crimson monkeyflower), a species amenable to
genetic and developmental manipulations as well as evolutionary analyses or/and ecological interrogations.
We propose to: (i) Identify the causal gene and mutation(s) underlying the novel pigmentation pattern by
genetic mapping and transgenic experiments; (ii) Characterize the developmental pre-settings (cryptic pre-
patterns) required for the formation of the novel pigmentation pattern by identifying multiple upstream
activators and repressors, through analysis of chemically induced mutants with altered pigmentation
patterns; (iii) Elucidate the evolutionary process through which the novel phenotype rose in frequency in the
natural habitat by population genomics analyses and field experiments. We anticipate that these studies
will, for the first time, provide a detailed view of the genetic and developmental mechanisms as well as the
evolutionary process driving the emergence of a novel phenotype in nature. The successful completion of
this project is also expected to help move the field forward by shifting the focus from correlational studies
and just-so stories of morphological innovations that happened in the distant past, to rigorous genetic,
developmental, and evolutionary analyses of novel phenotypes that are still in the initial stage of
emergence.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10563203
- **Project number:** 5R01GM131055-05
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT STORRS
- **Principal Investigator:** Yaowu Yuan
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $322,000
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-03-01 → 2025-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10563203

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10563203, Genetic origin, developmental mechanism, and evolutionary process of a novel phenotype in Mimulus (monkeyflowers) (5R01GM131055-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10563203. Licensed CC0.

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