Bats use their sense of smell to locate food sources like fruit. While most bats are insectivorous, some eat fruit and have evolved distinctive olfactory receptor genes to detect relevant odors. Bats have two chemosensory systems - olfaction in the nose and vomeronasal detection in the mouth - but many bat species have lost function in the latter system. The evolutionary loss and retention of chemosensory systems varies across bat families and species.
14. Receptors
bind to volatile
molecules
After binding, the
receptors activate a
switch that starts mental
representation of odor
Model by Claire de March
volatile
volatile
volatile
16. A typical example of evolution
Single-copy gene (Understanding Evolution site)
17.
18. Olfactory
receptor genes
are arranged in
arrays
Physical maps of OR
functional genes and
pseudogenes in several
genomic clusters
Niimura & Nei 2003 PNAS
23. But olfactory gene evolution
is hard to study
• Data collection
• Requires high-
quality genomes
• Expensive!
Niimura et al. 2018 Mol Biol Evol
24. To get DNA sequences
Requires combining technologies
25. OR genes vary by species
But there are so many how to analyze?
Species OR 1/3/7 OR 2/13
OR
5/8/9
Myo$s lucifugus 15 2 0
74 24 55
89 26 55
Anoura geoffroyi 38 7 26
91 30 48
129 37 74
44. Vomeronasal
in bats
Is conserved but does
not expand, not likely
involved in species
recognition
Neuweiler 2000 Biology of Bats
Neuweiler 2000 Biology of Bats