Gene expression associated with colour variation in frillneck lizards

A longstanding hypothesis in evolutionary ecology is that red-orange ornamental colours reliably signal individual quality due to limited dietary availability and metabolic costs associated with their production, such as the bio-conversion of dietary yellow carotenoids to red ketocarotenoids. However, in ectothermic vertebrates, these colours can also be produced by self-synthesised pteridine pigments. As a consequence, the relative ratio of pigment types and their biochemical and genetic basis have implications for the costs and information content of colour signals; yet they remain poorly known in most major taxonomic groups. We sequenced transcripomes of yellow, red and brown-grey skin of the frillneck lizard, Chlamydosaurus kingii, to investigate differences in gene expression associated with skin colour.