October 15 @ 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
David Parichy, Pratt-Ivy Foundation Distinguished Professor of Morphogenesis
University of Virginia
“Pattern formation and cell type diversification in fish pigmentation”
Fishes display some of the most striking pigment patterns among vertebrates. These patterns reflect the numbers and arrangements of several classes of neural crest-derived pigment cells, or chromatophores, including black melanophores (homologous to mammalian melanocytes), yellow-orange xanthophores, and iridescent iridophores. This talk will explore mechanisms that help organize these cells into patterns, and how those mechanisms may have been modified to produce different patterns across species. It will also consider how the developmental and evolutionary elaboration of chromatophore classes, sometimes through terminal additions to differentiation programs or through naturally occurring transdifferentiation, can contribute to species-specific patterns with behavioral consequences. Together, these studies suggest that pigment patterns offer a valuable system for understanding the evolution of adult form and for investigating how new cell types arise, with implications across levels of biological organization.