Nature Ecology and Evolution
Nature Ecology and Evolution
5 years ago

Clonal polymorphism and high heterozygosity in the celibate genome of the Amazon molly

Clonal polymorphism and high heterozygosity in the celibate genome of the Amazon molly
Sen Xu, Manfred Schartl, Gregg C. W. Thomas, Chad Tomlinson, Tomas Marques-Bonet, LaDeana W. Hillier, Domitille Chalopin, Michael Lynch, Ronald B. Walter, Daniel N. Murphy, Bronwen Aken, Jean-Nicolas Volff, Zhongwei Wang, Yuan Lu, Raquel García-Pérez, John Wang, Laurence Loewe, Kim D. Pruitt, Fabiana Farias, Michael J. Montague, Susanne Kneitz, Lukas Kuderna, Matthias Stöck, Wesley C. Warren, Matthew W. Hahn, Patrick Minx, Constantino Macias Garcia, Kathrin P. Lampert
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.

Publisher URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-018-0473-y

DOI: 10.1038/s41559-018-0473-y

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.