scholarly journals Evolution of genetic variance during adaptive radiation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg M. Walter ◽  
J. David Aguirre ◽  
Mark W. Blows ◽  
Daniel Ortiz-Barrientos

AbstractGenetic correlations between traits can bias adaptation away from optimal phenotypes and constrain the rate of evolution. If genetic correlations between traits limit adaptation to contrasting environments, rapid adaptive divergence across a heterogeneous landscape may be difficult. However, if genetic variance can evolve and align with the direction of natural selection, then abundant allelic variation can promote rapid divergence during adaptive radiation. Here, we explored adaptive divergence among ecotypes of an Australian native wildflower by quantifying divergence in multivariate phenotypes of populations that occupy four contrasting environments. We investigated differences in multivariate genetic variance underlying morphological traits and examined the alignment between divergence in phenotype and divergence in genetic variance. We found that divergence in mean multivariate phenotype has occurred along two major axes represented by different combinations of plant architecture and leaf traits. Ecotypes also showed divergence in the level of genetic variance in individual traits, and the multivariate distribution of genetic variance among traits. Divergence in multivariate phenotypic mean aligned with divergence in genetic variance, with most of the divergence in phenotype among ecotypes associated with a change in trait combinations that had substantial levels of genetic variance in each ecotype. Overall, our results suggest that divergent natural selection acting on high levels of standing genetic variation might fuel ecotypic differentiation during the early stages of adaptive radiation.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Bush ◽  
Scott M. Villa ◽  
Juan C. Altuna ◽  
Kevin P. Johnson ◽  
Michael D. Shapiro ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTAdaptive radiation occurs when the members of a single lineage evolve different adaptive forms in response to selection imposed by competitors or predators. Iconic examples include Darwin’s finches, Caribbean anoles, and Hawaiian silverswords, all of which live on islands. Parasites, which live on host “islands,” show macroevolutionary patterns consistent with adaptive radiation in response to host-imposed selection. Here we show rapid adaptive divergence of experimentally evolving feather lice in response to preening, the main host defense. We demonstrate that host defense exerts strong phenotypic selection for crypsis in lice transferred to different colored rock pigeons (Columba livia). During four years of experimental evolution (∼60 generations), the lice evolved heritable differences in color. The color differences spanned the phenotypic distribution of congeneric species of lice adapted to other species of pigeons. Our results indicate that host-mediated selection triggers rapid divergence in the adaptive radiation of parasites, which are among the most diverse organisms on earth. Our research suggests that host defense should be included with competition and predation as a major mechanism driving the evolution of biodiversity by adaptive radiation.


Author(s):  
Shun Ito ◽  
Takahiro Hirano ◽  
Satoshi Chiba ◽  
Junji Konuma

The mechanisms of adaptive radiation with phenotypic diversification and further adaptive speciation have been becoming clearer through a number of studies. Natural selection is one of the primary factors that contribute to these mechanisms. It has been demonstrated that divergent natural selection acts on a certain trait in adaptive radiation. However, it is not often known how natural selection acts on the source of a diversified population, although it has been detected in phylogenetic studies. Our study demonstrates how selection acts on a trait in a source population of diversified population using the Japanese land snail Euhadra peliomphala simodae. This snail’s shell colour has diversified due to disruptive selection after migration from the mainland to islands. We used trail-camera traps to identify the cause of natural selection on both the mainland and an island. We then conducted a mark-recapture experiment on the mainland to detect natural selection and compare the shape and strength of it to previous study in an island. In total, we captured and marked around 1,700 snails, and some of them were preyed on by an unknown predator. The trail-camera traps showed that the predator is the large Japanese field mouse Apodemus speciosus, but this predation did not correlate with shell colour. A Bayesian approach showed that the stabilising selection from factors other than predation acted on shell colour. Our results suggest that natural selection was changed by migration, which could explain the ultimate cause of phenotypic diversification in adaptive radiation that was not due to predation.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg M. Walter ◽  
Delia Terranova ◽  
James Clark ◽  
Salvatore Cozzolino ◽  
Antonia Cristaudo ◽  
...  

AbstractGenetic correlations between traits are expected to constrain the rate of adaptation by concentrating genetic variation in certain phenotypic directions, which are unlikely to align with the direction of selection in novel environments. However, if genotypes vary in their response to novel environments, then plasticity could create changes in genetic variation that will determine whether genetic constraints to adaptation arise. We tested this hypothesis by mating two species of closely related, but ecologically distinct, Sicilian daisies (Senecio, Asteraceae) using a quantitative genetics breeding design. We planted seeds of both species across an elevational gradient that included the native habitat of each species and two intermediate elevations, and measured eight leaf morphology and physiology traits on established seedlings. We detected large significant changes in genetic variance across elevation and between species. Elevational changes in genetic variance within species were greater than differences between the two species. Furthermore, changes in genetic variation across elevation aligned with phenotypic plasticity. These results suggest that to understand adaptation to novel environments we need to consider how genetic variance changes in response to environmental variation, and the effect of such changes on genetic constraints to adaptation and the evolution of plasticity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (8) ◽  
pp. 2300-2308
Author(s):  
Li Liu ◽  
Yayu Wang ◽  
Di Zhang ◽  
Zhuoxin Chen ◽  
Xiaoshu Chen ◽  
...  

Abstract Fisher’s fundamental theorem of natural selection predicts no additive variance of fitness in a natural population. Consistently, studies in a variety of wild populations show virtually no narrow-sense heritability (h2) for traits important to fitness. However, counterexamples are occasionally reported, calling for a deeper understanding on the evolution of additive variance. In this study, we propose adaptive divergence followed by population admixture as a source of the additive genetic variance of evolutionarily important traits. We experimentally tested the hypothesis by examining a panel of ∼1,000 yeast segregants produced by a hybrid of two yeast strains that experienced adaptive divergence. We measured >400 yeast cell morphological traits and found a strong positive correlation between h2 and evolutionary importance. Because adaptive divergence followed by population admixture could happen constantly, particularly in species with wide geographic distribution and strong migratory capacity (e.g., humans), the finding reconciles the observation of abundant additive variances in evolutionarily important traits with Fisher’s fundamental theorem of natural selection. Importantly, the revealed role of positive selection in promoting rather than depleting additive variance suggests a simple explanation for why additive genetic variance can be dominant in a population despite the ubiquitous between-gene epistasis observed in functional assays.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
McCall B. Calvert ◽  
Meredith M. Doellman ◽  
Jeffrey L. Feder ◽  
Glen R. Hood ◽  
Peter Meyers ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTUnderstanding rapid adaptation requires quantifying natural selection on traits and elucidating the genotype-phenotype relationship for those traits. However, recent studies have often failed to predict the direction of adaptive allelic variation in natural populations from laboratory studies. Here, we test for genomic signatures of genetic correlations to illustrate how multifarious, correlational selection may drive counterintuitive patterns of population divergence in the apple maggot fly, Rhagoletis pomonella (Diptera: Tephritidae). Apple-infesting populations with relatively early emerging adults have recently evolved from hawthorn-infesting populations consisting of relatively later emerging adults. Multiple studies have reported a paradoxical relationship between population differentiation and seasonal timing, as determined by the timing of diapause termination; alleles associated with late termination occur at higher frequencies in the earlier emerging apple-infesting populations compared to hawthorn-infesting populations. We present evidence that historical selection on diapause termination and another trait, initial diapause intensity, over geographic gradients generated genetic correlations between the traits in a direction antagonistic to contemporary selection on apple-infesting populations. Single nucleotide polymorphism in genomic regions of high linkage disequilibrium associated strongly with diapause termination and intensity, population divergence, geography, and evolutionary responses in laboratory selection experiments. These associations were consistent with geographically variable selection and with correlated evolutionary responses driving higher frequencies of late-associated alleles in the early emerging apple race. In contrast, loci associated only with diapause termination showed the expected pattern (more early-associated alleles in the apple race) in half of the population pairs. Our results suggest that selection on loci demonstrating antagonistic pleiotropy may often shape genomic footprints of rapid adaptation.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Liu ◽  
Yayu Wang ◽  
Di Zhang ◽  
Xiaoshu Chen ◽  
Zhijian Su ◽  
...  

AbstractFisher’s fundamental theorem of natural selection predicts no additive variance of fitness in a natural population. Consistently, observations in a variety of wild populations show virtually no narrow-sense heritability (h2) for traits important to fitness. However, counterexamples are occasionally reported, calling for a deeper understanding on the evolution of additive variance. In this study we propose adaptive divergence followed by population admixture as a source of the additive genetic variance of evolutionarily important traits. We experimentally tested the hypothesis by examining a panel of ~1,000 yeast segregants produced by a hybrid of two yeast strains that experienced adaptive divergence. We measured over 400 yeast cell morphological traits and found a strong positive correlation between h2 and evolutionary importance. Because adaptive divergence followed by population admixture could happen constantly, particularly in some species such as humans, the finding reconciles the observation of abundant additive variances in evolutionarily important traits with Fisher’s fundamental theorem of natural selection. It also suggests natural selection may effectively promote rather than suppress additive genetic variance in species with wide geographic distribution and strong migratory capacity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yusuke Takahashi ◽  
Anqing Zheng ◽  
Shinji Yamagata ◽  
Juko Ando

AbstractUsing a genetically informative design (about 2000 twin pairs), we investigated the phenotypic and genetic and environmental architecture of a broad construct of conscientiousness (including conscientiousness per se, effortful control, self-control, and grit). These four different measures were substantially correlated; the coefficients ranged from 0.74 (0.72–0.76) to 0.79 (0.76–0.80). Univariate genetic analyses revealed that individual differences in conscientiousness measures were moderately attributable to additive genetic factors, to an extent ranging from 62 (58–65) to 64% (61–67%); we obtained no evidence that shared environmental influences were observed. Multivariate genetic analyses showed that for the four measures used to assess conscientiousness, genetic correlations were stronger than the corresponding non-shared environmental correlations, and that a latent common factor accounted for over 84% of the genetic variance. Our findings suggest that individual differences in the four measures of conscientiousness are not distinguishable at both the phenotypic and behavioural genetic levels, and that the overlap was substantially attributable to genetic factors.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kensuke Okada ◽  
Masako Katsuki ◽  
Manmohan D. Sharma ◽  
Katsuya Kiyose ◽  
Tomokazu Seko ◽  
...  

AbstractTheory shows how sexual selection can exaggerate male traits beyond naturally selected optima and also how natural selection can ultimately halt trait elaboration. Empirical evidence supports this theory, but to our knowledge, there have been no experimental evolution studies directly testing this logic, and little examination of possible associated effects on female fitness. Here we use experimental evolution of replicate populations of broad-horned flour beetles to test for effects of sex-specific predation on an exaggerated sexually selected male trait (the mandibles), while also testing for effects on female lifetime reproductive success. We find that populations subjected to male-specific predation evolve smaller sexually selected mandibles and this indirectly increases female fitness, seemingly through intersexual genetic correlations we document. Predation solely on females has no effects. Our findings support fundamental theory, but also reveal unforseen outcomes—the indirect effect on females—when natural selection targets sex-limited sexually selected characters.


2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (9) ◽  
pp. 2176-2192 ◽  
Author(s):  
José A. Ramírez-Valiente ◽  
Nicholas J. Deacon ◽  
Julie Etterson ◽  
Alyson Center ◽  
Jed P. Sparks ◽  
...  

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