TY - JOUR
T1 - Clonal polymorphism and high heterozygosity in the celibate genome of the Amazon molly
AU - Warren, Wesley C.
AU - García-Pérez, Raquel
AU - Xu, Sen
AU - Lampert, Kathrin P.
AU - Chalopin, Domitille
AU - Stöck, Matthias
AU - Loewe, Laurence
AU - Lu, Yuan
AU - Kuderna, Lukas
AU - Minx, Patrick
AU - Montague, Michael J.
AU - Tomlinson, Chad
AU - Hillier, Ladeana W.
AU - Murphy, Daniel N.
AU - Wang, John
AU - Wang, Zhongwei
AU - Garcia, Constantino Macias
AU - Thomas, Gregg C.W.
AU - Volff, Jean Nicolas
AU - Farias, Fabiana
AU - Aken, Bronwen
AU - Walter, Ronald B.
AU - Pruitt, Kim D.
AU - Marques-Bonet, Tomas
AU - Hahn, Matthew W.
AU - Kneitz, Susanne
AU - Lynch, Michael
AU - Schartl, Manfred
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank E. G. Ávila for assistance and help in the field, I. Schlupp for P. formosa samples from Texas and discussions, M. Niklaus-Ruiz for help in preparation of the manuscript, and R. Agrawala for consultation on the assisted assembly aspects of this project. This work was supported by grants to W.C.W. (NIH: 2R24OD011198-04A1), M.W.H. (NSF DBI-1564611), M.S. (German Research Foundation DFG projects Scha408/10-1 and Scha408/12-1), M.St. (Heisenberg-Fellowship STO 493/2-2 of the German Science Foundation/DFG), T.M.B. (MINECO BFU2014-55090-P (FEDER), U01 MH106874 grant, Howard Hughes International Early Career, Obra Social ‘La Caixa’ and Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d’Economia i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya) and R.B.W. (NIH: R24OD011120). The genome annotation work carried out by NCBI was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the NIH, National Library of Medicine. The genome annotation work by Ensembl was supported by funding from the Wellcome Trust (WT108749/Z/15/Z and WT098051), the National Institutes of Health (R24 RR032658-01) and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Author(s).
PY - 2018/4/1
Y1 - 2018/4/1
N2 - The extreme rarity of asexual vertebrates in nature is generally explained by genomic decay due to absence of meiotic recombination, thus leading to extinction of such lineages. We explore features of a vertebrate asexual genome, the Amazon molly, Poecilia formosa, and find few signs of genetic degeneration but unique genetic variability and ongoing evolution. We uncovered a substantial clonal polymorphism and, as a conserved feature from its interspecific hybrid origin, a 10-fold higher heterozygosity than in the sexual parental species. These characteristics seem to be a principal reason for the unpredicted fitness of this asexual vertebrate. Our data suggest that asexual vertebrate lineages are scarce not because they are at a disadvantage, but because the genomic combinations required to bypass meiosis and to make up a functioning hybrid genome are rarely met in nature.
AB - The extreme rarity of asexual vertebrates in nature is generally explained by genomic decay due to absence of meiotic recombination, thus leading to extinction of such lineages. We explore features of a vertebrate asexual genome, the Amazon molly, Poecilia formosa, and find few signs of genetic degeneration but unique genetic variability and ongoing evolution. We uncovered a substantial clonal polymorphism and, as a conserved feature from its interspecific hybrid origin, a 10-fold higher heterozygosity than in the sexual parental species. These characteristics seem to be a principal reason for the unpredicted fitness of this asexual vertebrate. Our data suggest that asexual vertebrate lineages are scarce not because they are at a disadvantage, but because the genomic combinations required to bypass meiosis and to make up a functioning hybrid genome are rarely met in nature.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85041910101&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85041910101&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41559-018-0473-y
DO - 10.1038/s41559-018-0473-y
M3 - Article
C2 - 29434351
AN - SCOPUS:85041910101
SN - 2397-334X
VL - 2
SP - 669
EP - 679
JO - Nature Ecology and Evolution
JF - Nature Ecology and Evolution
IS - 4
ER -