Dataset Information

Ecological speciation in postglacial European whitefish: rapid adaptive radiations into the littoral, pelagic, and profundal lake habitats.

ABSTRACT: Understanding how a monophyletic lineage of a species diverges into several adaptive forms has received increased attention in recent years, but the underlying mechanisms in this process are still under debate. Postglacial fishes are excellent model organisms for exploring this process, especially the initial stages of ecological speciation, as postglacial lakes represent replicated discrete environments with variation in available niches. Here, we combine data of niche utilization, trophic morphology, and 17 microsatellite loci to investigate the diversification process of three sympatric European whitefish morphs from three northern Fennoscandian lakes. The morphological divergence in the gill raker number among the whitefish morphs was related to the utilization of different trophic niches and was associated with reproductive isolation within and across lakes. The intralacustrine comparison of whitefish morphs showed that these systems represent two levels of adaptive divergence: (1) a consistent littoral-pelagic resource axis; and (2) a more variable littoral-profundal resource axis. The results also indicate that the profundal whitefish morph has diverged repeatedly from the ancestral littoral whitefish morph in sympatry in two different watercourses. In contrast, all the analyses performed revealed clustering of the pelagic whitefish morphs across lakes suggesting parallel postglacial immigration with the littoral whitefish morph into each lake. Finally, the analyses strongly suggested that the trophic adaptive trait, number of gill rakers, was under diversifying selection in the different whitefish morphs. Together, the results support a complex evolutionary scenario where ecological speciation acts, but where both allopatric (colonization history) and sympatric (within watercourse divergence) processes are involved.

SUBMITTER: Præbel K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3892361 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Ecological speciation in postglacial European whitefish: rapid adaptive radiations into the littoral, pelagic, and profundal lake habitats.

Præbel Kim K Knudsen Rune R Siwertsson Anna A Karhunen Markku M Kahilainen Kimmo K KK Ovaskainen Otso O Ostbye Kjartan K Peruzzi Stefano S Fevolden Svein-Erik SE Amundsen Per-Arne PA

Ecology and evolution 20131111 15

Understanding how a monophyletic lineage of a species diverges into several adaptive forms has received increased attention in recent years, but the underlying mechanisms in this process are still under debate. Postglacial fishes are excellent model organisms for exploring this process, especially the initial stages of ecological speciation, as postglacial lakes represent replicated discrete environments with variation in available niches. Here, we combine data of niche utilization, trophic morp ...[more]

PMID: 24455129

Similar Datasets

Project description:Mapping of expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) is a powerful means for elucidating the genetic architecture of gene regulation. Yet, eQTL mapping has not been applied towards investigating the regulation architecture of genes involved in the process of population divergence, ultimately leading to speciation events. Here, we conducted an eQTL mapping experiment to compare the genetic architecture of transcript regulation in adaptive traits differentiating the recently evolved limnetic (dwarf) and benthic (normal) species pairs of lake whitefish. The eQTL were mapped in three data sets derived from a F1 hybrid-dwarf backcrossed family: the entire set of 66 genotyped individuals, and the two sexes treated separately. We identified strikingly more eQTL in the female dataset (174), compared to both male (54) and combined (33) data sets. The majority of these genes were not differentially expressed between male and female progeny of the backcross family, thus providing evidence for a strong pleiotropic sex-linked effect in transcriptomic regulation. The subtelomeric region of a linkage group segregating in females encompassed more than 50% of all eQTL, which exhibited the most pronounced additive effects. We also conducted a direct comparison of transcriptomic profiles between pure dwarf and normal progeny reared in controlled conditions. We detected 34 differentially expressed transcripts associated with eQTL segregating only in sex-specific data-sets, and mostly belonging to functional groups that differentiate dwarf and normal whitefish in natural populations. Therefore, these eQTL are not related to inter-individual variation, but instead to the adaptive and historical genetic divergence between dwarf and normal whitefish. This study exemplifies how the integration of genetic and transcriptomic data offers a strong means for dissecting the functional genomic response to selection by separating mapping family specific effects from genetic factors under selection, potentially involved in the phenotypic divergence of natural populations. Keywords: eQTL mapping

Dataset Information

Ecological speciation in postglacial European whitefish: rapid adaptive radiations into the littoral, pelagic, and profundal lake habitats.

Publications

Ecological speciation in postglacial European whitefish: rapid adaptive radiations into the littoral, pelagic, and profundal lake habitats.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets