Many animal species remain separate not because they fail to produce viable hybrids, but because they 'choose' not to mate. However, we still know very little of the genetic mechanisms underlying changes in these mate preference behaviours. Heliconius butterflies display bright warning patterns, which they also use to recognize conspecifics. Here, we couple QTL for divergence in visual preference behaviours with population genomic and gene expression analyses of neural tissue (central brain, optic...
Thu Apr 02, 2020 03:00
Investigating the interaction between environmental heterogeneity and local adaptation is critical to understand the evolutionary history of a species, providing the premise for studying the response of organisms to rapid climate change. However, for most species how exactly the spatial heterogeneity promotes population divergence and how genomic variations contribute to adaptive evolution remain poorly understood. We examine the contributions of geographical and environmental variables to population...
Thu Apr 02, 2020 03:00
Developing a thorough understanding of how ectotherm physiology adapts to different thermal environments is of crucial importance, especially in the face of global climate change. A key aspect of an organism's thermal performance curve - the relationship between fitness-related trait performance and temperature - is its thermal sensitivity, i.e., the rate at which trait values increase with temperature within its typically-experienced thermal range. For a given trait, the distribution of thermal...
Thu Apr 02, 2020 03:00
Predator specialization has often been considered an evolutionary dead-end due to the constraints associated with the evolution of morphological and functional optimizations throughout the organism. However, in some predators, these changes are localized in separate structures dedicated to prey capture. One of the most extreme cases of this modularity can be observed in siphonophores, a clade of pelagic colonial cnidarians that use tentilla (tentacle side branches armed with nematocysts) exclusively...
Thu Apr 02, 2020 03:00
High density single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays allow large numbers of individuals to be rapidly and cost-effectively genotyped at large numbers of genetic markers. However, despite being widely used in studies of humans and domesticated plants and animals, SNP arrays are lacking for most wild organisms. We developed a custom 90K Affymetrix Axiom array for an intensively studied pinniped, the Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella). SNPs were discovered from a combination of genomic and...
Thu Apr 02, 2020 03:00
Hybrid zones, where distinct populations meet and interbreed, give insight into how differences between populations are maintained despite gene flow. Studying clines in genetic loci and adaptive traits across hybrid zones is a powerful method for understanding how selection drives differentiation within a single species, but can also be used to compare parallel divergence in different species responding to a common selective pressure. Here, we study parallel divergence of wing colouration in the...
Thu Apr 02, 2020 03:00
A handful of studies have investigated sexually antagonistic constraints on obtaining sex-specific fitness optima, though exclusively through male-genome-limited evolution experiments. In this paper, we established a female-limited X chromosome evolution experiment, where we used an X chromosome balancer to enforce the inheritance of the X chromosome through the matriline, thus removing exposure to male selective constraints. This approach eliminates the effects of sexually antagonistic selection...
Thu Apr 02, 2020 03:00
The predominance of sexual reproduction in eukaryotes remains paradoxical in evolutionary theory. Of the hypotheses proposed to resolve this paradox, the "Red Queen hypothesis" emphasizes the potential of antagonistic interactions to cause fluctuating selection, which favours the evolution and maintenance of sex. Empirical and theoretical developments have focused on host-parasite interactions. However, the premises of the Red Queen theory apply equally well to any type of antagonistic interactions....
Thu Apr 02, 2020 03:00
The rate at which plants grow is a major functional trait in plant ecology. However, little is known about its evolution in natural populations. Here, we investigate evolutionary and environmental factors shaping variation in the growth rate of Arabidopsis thaliana . We quantified variation in plant growth in two light environments, across a set of 278 genotypes sampled within four broad regions, including an outgroup set of genotypes from China. The observed variation was validated in a field experiment...
Thu Apr 02, 2020 03:00
Sexual selection has long been known to favor the evolution of mating behaviors such as mate preference and competition, and to affect their genetic architecture, for instance by favoring genetic correlation between some traits. Reciprocally, genetic architecture can affect the expression and the evolvability of traits and mating behaviors. But sexual selection is highly context-dependent, making interactions between individuals a central process in evolution, governing the transmission of genotypes...
Thu Apr 02, 2020 03:00
Animals have developed numerous specialized biological characteristics due to selective pressure from the environment. The pygmy mole cricket Xya sichuanensis has well-developed saltatorial hind legs for jumping and benefits for its survival, but these legs cannot be used for walking. Therefore, the typical tripedal gait used by most insects with six legs is not possible, and X. sichuanensis walks exclusively using its fore and mid legs. In this study, we describe a "fore-mid" walking pattern in...
Thu Apr 02, 2020 03:00
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