Department of Zoology

Principal Investigators

Research area - Behavioural Ecology

My research focuses on the molecular genetic changes underlying adaptive evolution in vertebrates. This field is growing rapidly since knowledge about the genetic basis of several relevant physiological systems is improving quickly. A major goal is to understand the relationship between genotype and phenotype across all levels, from DNA through cell biology up to behaviour. A broad theme of much of the work is the molecular genetic basis of evolutionary change in signalling and sensory systems in primates. Major projects concern coat colour evolution in primates, plumage colour evolution in birds, colour vision in primates, and olfaction and olfactory signalling in primates. Other work involves the evolution of disease resistance genes in primates.

Research group - Evolutionary Genetics Group

Selected publications

• Nadeau, N. J., Minvielle, F., Ito, S., Inoue-Murayama, M., Gourichon, D., Johns, S.A., Burke, T. and N. I. Mundy (2008) Characterization of Japanese quail yellow as a genomic deletion upstream of the avian homologue of the mammalian ASIP (agouti) gene. Genetics (in press).

• Bradley, B. J. and N. I. Mundy (2008) The primate palette: the evolution of primate coloration. Evolutionary Anthropology (in press).
• Nadeau, N. J., Burke, T. A. and N. I. Mundy (2007) Evolution of an avian pigmentation gene correlates with a measure of sexual selection. Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B 274, 1807-1813.
• Haitina, T., Ringholm, A., Kelly, J., Mundy, N. I. and H. B. Schiöth (2007) High diversity in functional properties of melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) in divergent primate species is more strongly associated with phylogeny than coat colour. Molecular Biology and Evolution 24, 2001-2008.
• Mundy, N. I. (2007) Coloration and the genetics of adaptation. PLoS Biology 5, e250.
• Mundy, N. I. and J. Kelly (2006) Investigation of the role of the agouti signalling protein gene (ASIP) in coat colour evolution in primates. Mammalian Genome 17,1205-1213.
• Surridge, A. K., Suárez, S. S., Buchanan-Smith, H. M. and N. I. Mundy (2005) Non-random association of opsin alleles in wild groups of red-bellied tamarins (Saguinus labiatus) and maintenance of the colour vision polymorphism. Biology Letters 1, 465-468.
• Mundy, N. I., Badcock, N., Hart, T., Scribner, K., Janssen, K. and N. J. Nadeau (2004) Conserved genetic basis of a quantitative plumage trait involved in mate choice. Science 303, 1870-1873.
• Mundy, N. I. and S. Cook. (2003) Positive selection during the diversification of class Ivomeronasal receptor-like (V1RL) genes, putative pheromone receptor genes, in human and primate evolution. Molecular Biology and Evolution 20, 1805 - 1810.
• Surridge, A. K., Osorio, D. and N. I. Mundy. (2003) Evolution and selection of trichromatic vision in primates. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 18, 198-205.
• Surridge, A. K. and N. I. Mundy. (2002) Trans-specific evolution of opsin alleles and the maintenance of trichromatic colour vision in Callitrichine primates. Molecular Ecology 11, 2157-2169.
• Theron, E., Hawkins, K., Bermingham, E., Ricklefs, R. and N. I. Mundy. (2001) The molecular basis of an avian plumage polymorphism in the wild: a point mutation in the melanocortin-1 receptor is perfectly associated with melanism in the bananaquit (Coereba flaveola). Current Biology 11, 550-557.