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DNA and morphology unite two species and 10 million year old fossils.

ABSTRACT: Species definition and delimitation is a non-trivial problem in evolutionary biology that is particularly problematic for fossil organisms. This is especially true when considering the continuity of past and present species, because species defined in the fossil record are not necessarily equivalent to species defined in the living fauna. Correctly assigned fossil species are critical for sensitive downstream analysis (e.g., diversification studies and molecular-clock calibration). The marine snail genus Alcithoe exemplifies many of the problems with species identification. The paucity of objective diagnostic characters, prevalence of morphological convergence between species and considerable variability within species that are observed in Alcithoe are typical of a broad range of fossilised organisms. Using a synthesis of molecular and morphometric approaches we show that two taxa currently recognised as distinct are morphological variants of a single species. Furthermore, we validate the fossil record for one of these morphotypes by finding a concordance between the palaeontological record and divergence time of the lineage inferred using molecular-clock analysis. This work demonstrates the utility of living species represented in the fossil record as candidates for molecular-clock calibration, as the veracity of fossil species assignment can be more rigorously tested.

SUBMITTER: Hills SF

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3527379 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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DNA and morphology unite two species and 10 million year old fossils.

Hills Simon F K SF Crampton James S JS Trewick Steven A SA Morgan-Richards Mary M

PloS one 20121220 12

Species definition and delimitation is a non-trivial problem in evolutionary biology that is particularly problematic for fossil organisms. This is especially true when considering the continuity of past and present species, because species defined in the fossil record are not necessarily equivalent to species defined in the living fauna. Correctly assigned fossil species are critical for sensitive downstream analysis (e.g., diversification studies and molecular-clock calibration). The marine sn ...[more]

PMID: 23284880

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Project description:Beneath the seafloor, microbial life subsists in isolation from the surface world under persistent energy limitation. The nature and extent of genomic evolution in subseafloor microbes have been unknown. Here, we show that the genomes of Thalassospira bacterial populations cultured from million-year-old subseafloor sediments evolve in clonal populations by point mutation, with a relatively low rate of homologous recombination and elevated numbers of pseudogenes. Ratios of nonsynonymous to synonymous substitutions correlate with the accumulation of pseudogenes, consistent with a role for genetic drift in the subseafloor strains but not in type strains of Thalassospira isolated from the surface world. Consistent with this, pangenome analysis reveals that the subseafloor bacterial genomes have a significantly lower number of singleton genes than the type strains, indicating a reduction in recent gene acquisitions. Numerous insertion-deletion events and pseudogenes were present in a flagellar operon of the subseafloor bacteria, indicating that motility is nonessential in these million-year-old subseafloor sediments. This genomic evolution in subseafloor clonal populations coincided with a phenotypic difference: all subseafloor isolates have a lower rate of growth under laboratory conditions than the Thalassospira xiamenensis type strain. Our findings demonstrate that the long-term physical isolation of Thalassospira, in the absence of recombination, has resulted in clonal populations whereby reduced access to novel genetic material from neighbors has resulted in the fixation of new mutations that accumulate in genomes over millions of years. IMPORTANCE The nature and extent of genomic evolution in subseafloor microbial populations subsisting for millions of years below the seafloor are unknown. Subseafloor populations have ultralow metabolic rates that are hypothesized to restrict reproduction and, consequently, the spread of new traits. Our findings demonstrate that genomes of cultivated bacterial strains from the genus Thalassospira isolated from million-year-old abyssal sediment exhibit greatly reduced levels of homologous recombination, elevated numbers of pseudogenes, and genome-wide evidence of relaxed purifying selection. These substitutions and pseudogenes are fixed into the population, suggesting that the genome evolution of these bacteria has been dominated by genetic drift. Thus, reduced recombination, stemming from long-term physical isolation, resulted in small clonal populations of Thalassospira that have accumulated mutations in their genomes over millions of years.

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DNA and morphology unite two species and 10 million year old fossils.

Publications

DNA and morphology unite two species and 10 million year old fossils.

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