Genomic basis of ecological niche divergence among cryptic sister species of non-biting midges
- Background: There is a lack of understanding the evolutionary forces driving niche segregation of closely related organisms. In addition, pinpointing the genes driving ecological divergence is a key goal in molecular ecology. Here, larval transcriptome sequences obtained by next-generation-sequencing are used to address these issues in a morphologically cryptic sister species pair of non-biting midges (Chironomus riparius and C. piger). Results: More than eight thousand orthologous open reading frames were screened for interspecific divergence and intraspecific polymorphisms. Despite a small mean sequence divergence of 1.53% between the sister species, 25.1% of 18,115 observed amino acid substitutions were inferred by α statistics to be driven by positive selection. Applying McDonald-Kreitman tests to 715 alignments of gene orthologues identified eleven (1.5%) genes driven by positive selection. Conclusions: Three candidate genes were identified as potentially responsible for the observed niche segregation concerning nitrite concentration, habitat temperature and water conductivity. Additionally, signs of positive selection in the hydrogen sulfide detoxification pathway were detected, providing a new plausible hypothesis for the species’ ecological differentiation. Finally, a divergently selected, nuclear encoded mitochondrial ribosomal protein may contribute to reproductive isolation due to cytonuclear coevolution.
Author: | Hanno SchmidtORCiDGND, Bastian Greshake TzovarasORCiDGND, Barbara FeldmeyerORCiDGND, Thomas HankelnORCiDGND, Markus PfenningerORCiDGND |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-315130 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-14-384 |
ISSN: | 1471-2164 |
Pubmed Id: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23758757 |
Parent Title (English): | BMC genomics |
Publisher: | BioMed Central ; Springer |
Place of publication: | London ; Berlin ; Heidelberg |
Document Type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of Publication (online): | 2013/08/23 |
Date of first Publication: | 2013/06/10 |
Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
Release Date: | 2013/08/23 |
Tag: | Adaptive sequence evolution; Chironomus piger; Chironomus riparius; McDonald-Kreitman test; Positive selection |
Volume: | 14 |
Issue: | Art. 384 |
Page Number: | 11 |
First Page: | 1 |
Last Page: | 11 |
Note: | © 2013 Schmidt et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
HeBIS-PPN: | 352731958 |
Institutes: | Biowissenschaften / Biowissenschaften |
Angeschlossene und kooperierende Institutionen / Senckenbergische Naturforschende Gesellschaft | |
Biowissenschaften / Institut für Ökologie, Evolution und Diversität | |
Fachübergreifende Einrichtungen / Biodiversität und Klima Forschungszentrum (BiK-F) | |
Dewey Decimal Classification: | 5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 59 Tiere (Zoologie) / 590 Tiere (Zoologie) |
Sammlungen: | Universitätspublikationen |
Licence (German): | Creative Commons - Namensnennung 2.0 |