Search for: All records

Abstract Habitat transitions have shaped the evolutionary trajectory of many clades. Sea catfishes (Ariidae) have repeatedly undergone ecological transitions, including colonizing freshwaters from marine environments, leading to an adaptive radiation in Australia and New Guinea alongside non-radiating freshwater lineages elsewhere. Here, we generate and analyze one long-read reference genome and 66 short-read whole genome assemblies, in conjunction with genomic data for 54 additional species. We investigate how three major ecological transitions have shaped genomic variation among ariids over their ~ 50 million-year evolutionary history. Our results show that relatively younger freshwater lineages exhibit a higher incidence of positive selection than their more ancient marine counterparts. They also display a larger disparity in body shapes, a trend that correlates with a heightened occurrence of positive selection on genes associated with body size and elongation. Although positive selection in the Australia and New Guinea radiation does not stand out compared to non-radiating lineages overall, selection across the prolactin gene family during the marine-to-freshwater transition suggests that strong osmoregulatory adaptations may have facilitated their colonization and radiation. Our findings underscore the significant role of selection in shaping the genome and organismal traits in response to habitat shifts across macroevolutionary scales. 

Abstract Suncus etruscusis one of the world’s smallest mammals, with an average body mass of about 2 grams. The Etruscan shrew’s small body is accompanied by a very high energy demand and numerous metabolic adaptations. Here we report a chromosome-level genome assembly using PacBio long read sequencing, 10X Genomics linked short reads, optical mapping, and Hi-C linked reads. The assembly is partially phased, with the 2.472 Gbp primary pseudohaplotype and 1.515 Gbp alternate. We manually curated the primary assembly and identified 22 chromosomes, including X and Y sex chromosomes. The NCBI genome annotation pipeline identified 39,091 genes, 19,819 of them protein-coding. We also identified segmental duplications, inferred GO term annotations, and computed orthologs of human and mouse genes. This reference-quality genome will be an important resource for research on mammalian development, metabolism, and body size control. 

Abstract Understanding the forces that drive genotypic and phenotypic change in wild populations is a central goal of evolutionary biology. We examined exome variation in populations of deer mice from two of the California Channel Islands:Peromyscus maniculatus elususfrom Santa Barbara Island andP. m. santacruzaefrom Santa Cruz Island exhibit significant differences in olfactory predator recognition, activity timing, aggressive behavior, morphology, prevalence of Sin Nombre virus, and population densities. We characterized variation in protein‐coding regions using exome capture and sequencing of 25 mice from Santa Barbara Island and 22 mice from Santa Cruz Island. We identified and examined 386,256 SNPs using three complementary methods (BayeScan, pcadapt, and LFMM). We found strong differences in molecular variation between the two populations and 710 outlier SNPs in protein‐coding genes that were detected by all three methods. We identified 35 candidate genes from this outlier set that were related to differences in phenotypes between island populations. Enrichment analyses demonstrated that patterns of molecular variation were associated with biological processes related to response to chemical stimuli and regulation of immune processes. Candidate genes associated with olfaction (Gfy,Tlr2,Vmn13r2, numerous olfactory receptor genes), circadian activity (Cry1), anxiety (Brca1), immunity (Cd28,Eif2ak4, Il12a,Syne1), aggression (Cyp19a,Lama2), and body size (Bc16,Syne1) exhibited non‐synonymous mutations predicted to have moderate to large effects. Variation in olfaction‐related genes, including a stop codon in the Santa Barbara Island population, suggests loss of predator‐recognition traits at the molecular level, consistent with a lack of behavioral aversion to fox feces. These findings also suggest that divergent pathogen prevalence and population density may have influenced adaptive immunity and behavioral phenotypes, such as reduced aggression. Overall, our study indicates that ecological differences between islands are associated with signatures of selection in protein‐coding genes underlying phenotypes that promote success in those environments.