Positive selection in development and growth rate regulation genes involved in species divergence of the genus Radix

BMC Evolutionary Biology

Research Article

Ingo Ebersberger¹  Markus Pfenninger²  Elisabeth Funke²  Bastian Greshake³  Barbara Feldmeyer⁴ 

[1] Applied Bioinformatics Group, Institute of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Goethe University Frankfurt, Maxvon-Laue Str. 13, 60438, Frankfurt am Main, Germany;Molecular Ecology Group, Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F), Georg-Voigt-Str. 14-16, 60325, Frankfurt am Main, Germany;Molecular Ecology Group, Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F), Georg-Voigt-Str. 14-16, 60325, Frankfurt am Main, Germany;Applied Bioinformatics Group, Institute of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Goethe University Frankfurt, Maxvon-Laue Str. 13, 60438, Frankfurt am Main, Germany;Molecular Ecology Group, Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F), Georg-Voigt-Str. 14-16, 60325, Frankfurt am Main, Germany;Evolutionary Biology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Müllerweg 6, 55099, Mainz, Germany;

关键词: Adaptive sequence evolution;    Positive selection;    Transcriptomics;    RNA-Seq;    Mollusks;    Adaptation;    Reproductive isolation;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12862-015-0434-x

 received in 2015-04-27, accepted in 2015-07-24,  发布年份 2015

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundLife history traits like developmental time, age and size at maturity are directly related to fitness in all organisms and play a major role in adaptive evolution and speciation processes. Comparative genomic or transcriptomic approaches to identify positively selected genes involved in species divergence can help to generate hypotheses on the driving forces behind speciation. Here we use a bottom-up approach to investigate this hypothesis by comparative analysis of orthologous transcripts of four closely related European Radix species.ResultsSnails of the genus Radix occupy species specific distribution ranges with distinct climatic niches, indicating a potential for natural selection driven speciation based on ecological niche differentiation. We then inferred phylogenetic relationships among the four Radix species based on whole mt-genomes plus 23 nuclear loci. Three different tests to infer selection and changes in amino acid properties yielded a total of 134 genes with signatures of positive selection. The majority of these genes belonged to the functional gene ontology categories “reproduction” and “genitalia” with an overrepresentation of the functions “development” and “growth rate”.ConclusionsWe show here that Radix species divergence may be primarily enforced by selection on life history traits such as (larval-) development and growth rate. We thus hypothesise that life history differences may confer advantages under the according climate regimes, e.g., species occupying warmer and dryer habitats might have a fitness advantage with fast developing susceptible life stages, which are more tolerant to habitat desiccation.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Feldmeyer et al. 2015