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Evolvability meets biogeography: evolutionary potential decreases at high and low environmental favourability.

ABSTRACT: Understanding and forecasting the effects of environmental change on wild populations requires knowledge on a critical question: do populations have the ability to evolve in response to that change? However, our knowledge on how evolution works in wild conditions under different environmental circumstances is extremely limited. We investigated how environmental variation influences the evolutionary potential of phenotypic traits. We used published data to collect or calculate 135 estimates of evolvability of morphological traits of European wild bird populations. We characterized the environmental favourability of each population throughout the species' breeding distribution. Our results suggest that the evolutionary potential of morphological traits decreases as environmental favourability becomes high or low. Strong environmental selection pressures and high intra-specific competition may reduce species' evolutionary potential in low- and high- favourability areas, respectively. This suggests that species may be least able to adapt to new climate conditions at their range margins and at the centre. Our results underscore the need to consider the evolutionary potential of populations when studying the drivers of species distributions, particularly when predicting the effects of environmental change. We discuss the utility of integrating evolutionary dynamics into a biogeographical perspective to understand how environmental variation shapes evolutionary patterns. This approach would also produce more reliable predictions about the effect of environmental change on population persistence and therefore on biodiversity.

SUBMITTER: Martinez-Padilla J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5474074 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Evolvability meets biogeography: evolutionary potential decreases at high and low environmental favourability.

Martínez-Padilla J J Estrada A A Early R R Garcia-Gonzalez F F

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20170601 1856

Understanding and forecasting the effects of environmental change on wild populations requires knowledge on a critical question: do populations have the ability to evolve in response to that change? However, our knowledge on how evolution works in wild conditions under different environmental circumstances is extremely limited. We investigated how environmental variation influences the evolutionary potential of phenotypic traits. We used published data to collect or calculate 135 estimates of ev ...[more]

PMID: 28615500

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Project description:The abundant larval transcript (ALT-2) protein is present in all members of the Filarioidea, and has been reported as a potential candidate antigen for a subunit vaccine against lymphatic filariasis. To assess the potential for vaccine escape or heterologous protection, we examined the evolutionary selection acting on ALT-2. The ratios of nonsynonymous (K(a)) to synonymous (K(s)) mutation frequencies (ω) were calculated for the alt-2 genes of the lymphatic filariasis agents Brugia malayi and Wuchereria bancrofti and the agents of river blindness and African eyeworm disease Onchocerca volvulus and Loa loa. Two distinct Bayesian models of sequence evolution showed that ALT-2 of W. bancrofti and L. loa were under significant (P<0.05; P < 0.001) diversifying selection, while ALT-2 of B. malayi and O. volvulus were under neutral to stabilizing selection. Diversifying selection as measured by ω values was notably strongest on the region of ALT-2 encoding the signal peptide of L. loa and was elevated in the variable acidic domain of L. loa and W. bancrofti. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that the ALT-2 consensus sequences formed three clades: the first consisting of B. malayi, the second consisting of W. bancrofti, and the third containing both O. volvulus and L. loa. ALT-2 selection was therefore not predictable by phylogeny or pathology, as the two species parasitizing the eye were selected differently, as were the two species parasitizing the lymphatic system. The most immunogenic regions of L. loa and W. bancrofti ALT-2 sequence as modeled by antigenicity prediction analysis did not correspond with elevated levels of diversifying selection, and were not selected differently than predicted antigenic epitopes in B. malayi and O. volvulus. Measurements of ALT-2 evolvability made by χ2 analysis between alleles that were stable (O. volvulus and B. malayi) and those that were under diversifying selection (W. bancrofti and L. loa) indicated significant (P<0.01) deviations from a normal distribution for both W. bancrofti and L. loa. The relationship between evolvability and selection in L. loa followed a second order polynomial distribution (R2 = 0.89), indicating that the two factors relate to one another in accordance with an additional unknown factor. Taken together, these findings indicate discrete evolutionary drivers acting on ALT-2 of the four organisms examined, and the described variation has implications for design of novel vaccines and diagnostic reagents. Additionally, this represents the first mathematical description of evolvability in a naturally occurring setting.

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Evolvability meets biogeography: evolutionary potential decreases at high and low environmental favourability.

Publications

Evolvability meets biogeography: evolutionary potential decreases at high and low environmental favourability.

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