GEMINI · Genomics of Miniaturisation in Vertebrates

Miniaturisation—the evolution of such reduced body size that anatomy or ecology is substantially altered—has been a defining force in vertebrate evolution. These changes must have a genomic basis. My ambition with GEMINI is to characterise the interplay between organismal miniaturisation and the genome, and discover how morphological transformations can arise in these organisms. To do this, I will produce a new comparative genomic paradigm in Work Package 1 (WP1) comprising chromosome-level genomes from 20 sister-pairs of miniaturised and non-miniaturised species spanning subphylum Vertebrata. Of these 40 genomes, 23 will be newly generated using the latest sequencing technologies and annotation pipelines. I will apply a host of cutting-edge methods in comparative evolutionary genomics to identify genomic signatures of miniaturisation (WP2), and test hypotheses regarding the drivers and limiters of miniaturisation (WP3) on this paradigm. I will then integrate these findings with developmental approaches to establish if there is a common basis to a classic case of convergent, miniaturisation-induced anatomical change: digit loss in the smallest tetrapods, frogs (WP4). GEMINI will dramatically change our understanding of the evolution of miniaturisation. It will set the stage for larger-scale interrogation of the evolution of novelty in metazoans, and help us understand why being small is such a big deal.