RoL:FELS: Symposium: Mitonuclear compatibility as a rule for complex life; January 5, 2019; Tampa, FL

Auburn University, Auburn AL

Investigators

Abstract

Evolutionary biology has led to breakthroughs in agriculture and medicine and provides a framework for understanding the Earth's biodiversity. The foundations of modern evolutionary biology were established before the discovery that there are important genes outside of the nucleus of the cell in mitochondria. This workshop is included under Rules of Life as it explores the significance of having genes carried in two distinct sets; this idea reframes key theories in evolutionary biology. New ideas on the role of mitochondrial genes in the evolution of organisms need to be discussed and further developed. To address these developing interests in the community, a symposium on has been organized for the 2019 meeting of the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB). The symposium is titled "Beyond the powerhouse: integrating mitonuclear evolution, physiology, and theory in comparative biology" and will bring together scientists who are working in diverse organismal systems to address emerging topics in mitonuclear ecology. The speakers will make formal presentation of the work being conducted in laboratories in the United States and around the world. The ideas that emerge from this meeting may advance medicine and agriculture. This symposium will include a diverse range of researchers that span career stages from graduate student to full professor, and all speakers will disseminate these findings in a special issue of Integrative and Comparative Biology. Eukaryotes are the outcome of an ancient symbiosis and as such, eukaryotic cells possess both a nuclear and mitochondrial (mt) genome. Interactions between the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes, mitonuclear interactions, are an inherent feature of eukaryotic biology. Not surprisingly, mitonuclear interactions have been suggested to underlie the evolution of organismal complexity, environmental adaptation, the evolution of life history traits, and the process of speciation. Collectively, rethinking such classic eco-evolutionary processes in the light of mitonuclear interactions has recently been dubbed "mitonuclear ecology". To address these developing interests in the community, a symposium on mitonuclear ecology has been organized for the 2019 meeting of the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB). The speakers include experts in molecular evolution, the theory of mitonuclear coadaptation and conflict, and mitochondrial physiology. By presenting this combination of expertise, the goal is to inform the community of the importance of mitonuclear interactions, encourage others to consider these types of interactions in their own work, and develop new fields (e.g., mitonuclear ecophysiology). This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.