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Disentangling the phylogenetic and ecological components of spider phenotypic variation.

ABSTRACT: An understanding of how the degree of phylogenetic relatedness influences the ecological similarity among species is crucial to inferring the mechanisms governing the assembly of communities. We evaluated the relative importance of spider phylogenetic relationships and ecological niche (plant morphological variables) to the variation in spider body size and shape by comparing spiders at different scales: (i) between bromeliads and dicot plants (i.e., habitat scale) and (ii) among bromeliads with distinct architectural features (i.e., microhabitat scale). We partitioned the interspecific variation in body size and shape into phylogenetic (that express trait values as expected by phylogenetic relationships among species) and ecological components (that express trait values independent of phylogenetic relationships). At the habitat scale, bromeliad spiders were larger and flatter than spiders associated with the surrounding dicots. At this scale, plant morphology sorted out close related spiders. Our results showed that spider flatness is phylogenetically clustered at the habitat scale, whereas it is phylogenetically overdispersed at the microhabitat scale, although phylogenic signal is present in both scales. Taken together, these results suggest that whereas at the habitat scale selective colonization affect spider body size and shape, at fine scales both selective colonization and adaptive evolution determine spider body shape. By partitioning the phylogenetic and ecological components of phenotypic variation, we were able to disentangle the evolutionary history of distinct spider traits and show that plant architecture plays a role in the evolution of spider body size and shape. We also discussed the relevance in considering multiple scales when studying phylogenetic community structure.

SUBMITTER: Goncalves-Souza T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3942061 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Disentangling the phylogenetic and ecological components of spider phenotypic variation.

Gonçalves-Souza Thiago T Diniz-Filho José Alexandre Felizola JA Romero Gustavo Quevedo GQ

PloS one 20140219 2

An understanding of how the degree of phylogenetic relatedness influences the ecological similarity among species is crucial to inferring the mechanisms governing the assembly of communities. We evaluated the relative importance of spider phylogenetic relationships and ecological niche (plant morphological variables) to the variation in spider body size and shape by comparing spiders at different scales: (i) between bromeliads and dicot plants (i.e., habitat scale) and (ii) among bromeliads with ...[more]

PMID: 24651264

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Project description:BACKGROUND: It is energetically expensive to synthesize certain amino acids. The proteins (spidroins) of spider major ampullate (MA) silk, MaSp1 and MaSp2, differ in amino acid composition. Glutamine and proline are prevalent in MaSp2 and are expensive to synthesize. Since most orb web spiders express high proline silk they might preferentially attain the amino acids needed for silk from food and shift toward expressing more MaSp1 in their MA silk when starved. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We fed three spiders; Argiope aetherea, Cyrtophora moluccensis and Leucauge blanda, high protein, low protein or no protein solutions. A. aetherea and L. blanda MA silks are high in proline, while C. moluccesnsis MA silks are low in proline. After 10 days of feeding we determined the amino acid compositions and mechanical properties of each species' MA silk and compared them between species and treatments with pre-treatment samples, accounting for ancestry. We found that the proline and glutamine of A. aetherea and L. blanda silks were affected by protein intake; significantly decreasing under the low and no protein intake treatments. Glutmaine composition in C. moluccensis silk was likewise affected by protein intake. However, the composition of proline in their MA silk was not significantly affected by protein intake. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that protein limitation induces a shift toward different silk proteins with lower glutamine and/or proline content. Contradictions to the MaSp model lie in the findings that C. moluccensis MA silks did not experience a significant reduction in proline and A. aetherea did not experience a significant reduction in serine on low/no protein. The mechanical properties of the silks could not be explained by a MaSp1 expressional shift. Factors other than MaSp expression, such as the expression of spidroin-like orthologues, may impact on silk amino acid composition and spinning and glandular processes may impact mechanics.

Project description:Pratylenchus penetrans is a common and important agricultural pest in Wisconsin, a USA state with a diverse agriculture. We compared populations from around the state to each other and to data published for populations around the world to gain insight on the variability of features important for identification of this cosmopolitan species. Thirteen isolates from samples collected in soybean fields in ten Wisconsin counties were established in monoxenic cultures. Analysis of morphological features revealed the least variable feature for all isolates collectively was vulva percentage. Features less variable within than among isolates were body width, lip region height, and stylet length. Some isolates showed only the smooth tail tip phenotype and others had a mix of smooth and annulated tail phenotypes. A suite of features provided sufficient pattern to group isolates into four clusters according to hierarchical agglomerative clustering and canonical discriminative analyses, but not with enough distinction to be useful for classification. Haplotype analysis based on the COI mitochondrial gene of the 13 cultured isolates, 39 Wisconsin field populations, and published sequences representing five additional USA states and six countries revealed 21 haplotypes, 15 of which occurred in Wisconsin. Ten haplotypes represented in Wisconsin were shared with populations from Europe, South America, Africa, or Asia. Five haplotypes were unique to Wisconsin, six were unique to The Netherlands, and one was unique to Japan suggesting that even more COI diversity will be revealed when more COI sequences for P. penetrans become available. The maximum pairwise sequence variation was 6% and the SNPs did not alter amino acids, indicating cryptic biodiversity within the species worldwide. The cosmopolitan to localized scale of distribution of COI haplotypes could be due to frequent and ongoing dispersal events, facilitated by life history traits and the broad host range of P. penetrans. Regions of diverse agriculture, like Wisconsin, show promise for studying this important pest and our study confirms the utility of the COI mtDNA gene for studying variation within a species.

Project description:BackgroundIn island archipelagos, where islands have experienced repeated periods of fragmentation and connection through cyclic changes in sea level, complex among-island distributions might reflect historical distributional changes or local evolution. We test the relative importance of these mechanisms in an endemic radiation of Rhagada land snails in the Dampier Archipelago, a continental archipelago off the coast of Western Australia, where ten morphospecies have complex, overlapping distributions.ResultsWe obtained partial mtDNA sequence (COI) for 1015 snails collected from 213 locations across 30 Islands, and used Bayesian phylogenetic analysis and Analysis of Molecular Variance (AMOVA) to determine whether geography or the morphological taxonomy best explains the pattern of molecular evolution. Rather than forming distinct monophyletic groups, as would be expected if they had single, independent origins, all of the widely distributed morphospecies were polyphyletic, distributed among several well-supported clades, each of which included several morphospecies. Each mitochondrial clade had a clear, cohesive geographic distribution, together forming a series of parapatric replacements separated by narrow contact zones. AMOVA revealed further incongruence between mtDNA diversity and morphological variation within clades, as the taxonomic hypothesis always explained a low or non-significant proportion of the molecular variation. In contrast, the pattern of mtDNA evolution closely reflected contemporary and historical marine barriers.ConclusionsDespite opportunities for distributional changes during periods when the islands were connected, there is no evidence that dispersal has contributed to the geographic variation of shell form at the broad scale. Based on an estimate of dispersal made previously for Rhagada, we conclude that the periods of connection have been too short in duration to allow for extensive overland dispersal or deep mitochondrial introgression. The result is a sharp and resilient phylogeographic pattern. The distribution of morphotypes among clades and distant islands is explained most simply by their parallel evolution.

Dataset Information

Disentangling the phylogenetic and ecological components of spider phenotypic variation.

Publications

Disentangling the phylogenetic and ecological components of spider phenotypic variation.

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