Dataset Information

Phylogenetic patterns and the adaptive evolution of osmoregulation in fiddler crabs (Brachyura, Uca).

ABSTRACT: Salinity is the primary driver of osmoregulatory evolution in decapods, and may have influenced their diversification into different osmotic niches. In semi-terrestrial crabs, hyper-osmoregulatory ability favors sojourns into burrows and dilute media, and provides a safeguard against hemolymph dilution; hypo-osmoregulatory ability underlies emersion capability and a life more removed from water sources. However, most comparative studies have neglected the roles of the phylogenetic and environmental components of inter-specific physiological variation, hindering evaluation of phylogenetic patterns and the adaptive nature of osmoregulatory evolution. Semi-terrestrial fiddler crabs (Uca) inhabit fresh to hyper-saline waters, with species from the Americas occupying higher intertidal habitats than Indo-west Pacific species mainly found in the low intertidal zone. Here, we characterize numerous osmoregulatory traits in all ten fiddler crabs found along the Atlantic coast of Brazil, and we employ phylogenetic comparative methods using 24 species to test for: (i) similarities of osmoregulatory ability among closely related species; (ii) salinity as a driver of osmoregulatory evolution; (iii) correlation between salt uptake and secretion; and (iv) adaptive peaks in osmoregulatory ability in the high intertidal American lineages. Our findings reveal that osmoregulation in Uca exhibits strong phylogenetic patterns in salt uptake traits. Salinity does not correlate with hyper/hypo-regulatory abilities, but drives hemolymph osmolality at ambient salinities. Osmoregulatory traits have evolved towards three adaptive peaks, revealing a significant contribution of hyper/hypo-regulatory ability in the American clades. Thus, during the evolutionary history of fiddler crabs, salinity has driven some of the osmoregulatory transformations that underpin habitat diversification, although others are apparently constrained phylogenetically.

SUBMITTER: Faria SC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5300755 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Phylogenetic patterns and the adaptive evolution of osmoregulation in fiddler crabs (Brachyura, Uca).

Faria Samuel Coelho SC Provete Diogo Borges DB Thurman Carl Leo CL McNamara John Campbell JC

PloS one 20170209 2

Salinity is the primary driver of osmoregulatory evolution in decapods, and may have influenced their diversification into different osmotic niches. In semi-terrestrial crabs, hyper-osmoregulatory ability favors sojourns into burrows and dilute media, and provides a safeguard against hemolymph dilution; hypo-osmoregulatory ability underlies emersion capability and a life more removed from water sources. However, most comparative studies have neglected the roles of the phylogenetic and environmen ...[more]

PMID: 28182764

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Project description:Portunoidea (Heterotremata) is a morphologically disparate taxon of true crabs (Brachyura) best-known for many of its representatives being considered “swimming crabs”. The term “swimming crab”, however, sometimes refers to a distinct taxon (traditionally to Portunidae within Portunoidea), and sometimes to a certain morphotype in which the 5th pereiopod (P5) has a specific shape that facilitates swimming. We use the term “P5-swimming crab” or “P5-swimmer” herein, not only to restrict it to the morphotype, but also to distinguish the swimming in question from other kinds of swimming in Brachyura. The evolution of P5-swimming crabs has not yet been satisfactorily investigated. In particular, it is not known whether the morphotype evolved several times independently in different lineages of Portunoidea or whether it evolved only once and was lost in several lineages. Ours is the first approach combining molecular with morphological data to result in a new phylogenetic positioning of some members of Portunoidea. For the first time, data from the axial skeleton and extrinsic musculature are used. Morphological examinations reveal that the axial skeleton and extrinsic musculature in P5-swimming crabs are more diverse than previously thought, with the exception of the P5 anterior coxa muscle, which originates at the median plate in all P5-swimmers. Ancestral state reconstructions based on parsimony reveal that the stem species of Portunoidea already showed the morphotype of a P5-swimming crab, but with a long merus which probably resulted in less effective P5-swimming than in extant P5-swimming crab species with a short merus. Several other extant taxa represent a reversal of the P5-swimmer morphotype to varying degrees, with some extant species showing a complete reversal of unambiguous P5-swimming crab character states—one example being the well-known common shore crab Carcinus maenas. The absence of a connection between interosternite 7/8 and the sella turcica (the secondary loss of the “brachyuran sella turcica”) in the stem species of Heterotremata, resulting in a junction plate which forms a cavity that offers room and attachment sites for the P5 extrinsic musculature is uncovered as preadaptation to the P5-swimmer morphotype in Heterotremata. This preadaptation is missing in Podotremata and Thoracotremata, the other two traditional main taxa of Brachyura. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12983-022-00467-8.

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Dataset Information

Phylogenetic patterns and the adaptive evolution of osmoregulation in fiddler crabs (Brachyura, Uca).

Publications

Phylogenetic patterns and the adaptive evolution of osmoregulation in fiddler crabs (Brachyura, Uca).

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