Tyler E. Boggs

TL;DR: In this paper, a high-resolution, chromosome-level surface fish genome was presented, enabling the first genome-wide comparison between surface fish and cavefish populations, using this resource, they performed quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping analyses and found new candidate genes for eye loss such as dusp26.

TL;DR: A high-resolution, chromosome-level surface fish genome is presented, enabling the first genome-wide comparison between surface fish and cavefish populations and confirming the essential role of a gene within an eye size QTL, rx3, in eye formation in A. mexicanus.

TL;DR: It is suggested that patterning of canal neuromasts may impact spatial position of suborbital bones across development, and the absence of an eye and subsequent orbital collapse in cavefish appears to influence positional information normally inherent to the infraorbital canal.

TL;DR: The potential role of limited oxygen as a critical environmental feature of caves in the Sierra de El Abra is reviewed and evidence that Astyanax cavefish may have evolved adaptive features enabling them to thrive in lower oxygen compared to their surface-dwelling counterparts is reviewed.

TL;DR: Two unusual ossification processes in cavefish that underlie the development of ‘fragmented’ and asymmetric cranial bones are discovered and may have evolved to augment sensory input, and may indirectly result in a trade-off between sensory expansion and cranial bone development.