Project description:We examined adaptive morphological divergence and epigenetic variation in genetically impoverished asexual populations of a freshwater snail, Potamopyrgus antipodarum from distinct environments. These populations exhibit environment-specific adaptive divergence in shell shape and significant genome wide DNA methylation differences among differentially adapted lake and fast water flow river populations. The epigenetic variation correlated with adaptive phenotypic variation in rapidly adapting asexual animal populations. This provides one of the first examples of environmentally-driven differences in epigenetics that associates with adaptive phenotypic divergence.
Project description:We examined adaptive morphological divergence and epigenetic variation in genetically impoverished asexual populations of a freshwater snail, Potamopyrgus antipodarum from distinct environments. These populations exhibit environment-specific adaptive divergence in shell shape and significant genome wide DNA methylation differences among differentially adapted lake and fast water flow river populations. The epigenetic variation correlated with adaptive phenotypic variation in rapidly adapting asexual animal populations. This provides one of the first examples of environmentally-driven differences in epigenetics that associates with adaptive phenotypic divergence.
