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Vocal production learning (“vocal learning”) is a convergently evolved trait in vertebrates. To identify brain genomic elements associated with mammalian vocal learning, we integrated genomic, anatomical, and neurophysiological data from the Egyptian fruit bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus) with analyses of the genomes of 215 placental mammals. First, we identified a set of proteins evolving more slowly in vocal learners. Then, we discovered a vocal motor cortical region in the Egyptian fruit bat, an emergent vocal learner, and leveraged that knowledge to identify active cis-regulatory elements in the motor cortex of vocal learners. Machine learning methods applied to motor cortex open chromatin revealed 50 enhancers robustly associated with vocal learning whose activity tended to be lower in vocal learners. Our research implicates convergent losses of motor cortex regulatory elements in mammalian vocal learning evolution.
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Swanson-Hysell/Franklin_LIP: Elements article publication
Release associated with publication of Elements article. Data and figure generation code associated with: Macdonald, F.M. and Swanson-Hysell, N.L. (2023), The Franklin large igneous province and Snowball Earth initiation, Elements, doi:10.2138/gselements.19.5.296.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1925990
- PAR ID:
- 10560797
- Publisher / Repository:
- Zenodo
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Right(s):
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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