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16 Nov 2018
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Fine-grained habitat-associated genetic connectivity in an admixed population of mussels in the small isolated Kerguelen Islands

Introgression from related species reveals fine-scale structure in an isolated population of mussels and causes patterns of genetic-environment associations

Recommended by based on reviews by Thomas Broquet and Tatiana Giraud

Assessing population connectivity is central to understanding population dynamics, and is therefore of great importance in evolutionary biology and conservation biology. In the marine realm, the apparent absence of physical barriers, large population sizes and high dispersal capacities of most organisms often result in no detectable structure, thereby hindering inferences of population connectivity. In a review paper, Gagnaire et al. [1] propose several ideas to improve detection of population connectivity. Notably, using simulations they show that under certain circumstances introgression from one species into another may reveal cryptic population structure within that second species.
The isolated Kerguelen archipelago in the south of Indian Ocean represents a typical situation where the structure of coastal marine organisms is expected to be difficult to detect. In an elegant genomic study, Fraïsse et al. [2] take advantage of introgression from foreign lineages to infer fine-grained population structure in a population of mussels around the Kerguelen archipelago, and investigate its association with environmental variables. Using a large panel of genome-wide markers (GBS) and applying a range of methods that unravel patterns of divergence and gene flow among lineages, they first find that the Kerguelen population is highly admixed, with a major genetic background corresponding to the southern mussel lineage Mytilus platensis introgressed by three northern lineages. By selecting a panel of loci enriched in ancestry-informative SNPs (ie, SNPs highly differentiated among northern lineages) they then detect a fine-scale genetic structure around the Kerguelen archipelago, and identify a major connectivity break. They further show an associating between the genetic structure and environmental variables, particularly the presence of Macrocystis kelp, a marker of habitat exposure to waves (a feature repeatedly evidenced to be important for mussels). While such association pattern could lead to the interpretation that differentiated SNPs correspond to loci directly under selection or linked with such loci, and even be considered as support for adaptive introgression, Fraïsse et al. [2] convincingly show by performing simulations that the genetic-environment association detected can be entirely explained by dispersal barriers associated with environmental variables (habitat-associated connectivity). They also explain why the association is better detected by ancestry-informative SNPs as predicted by Gagnaire et al. [1]. In addition, intrinsic genetic incompatibilities, which reduce gene flow, tend to become trapped at ecotones due to ecological selection, even when loci causing genetic incompatibilities are unlinked with loci involved in adaption to local ecological conditions (Bierne et al. [3]’s coupling hypothesis), leading to correlations between environmental variables and loci not involved in local adaptation. Notably, in Fraïsse et al. [2]’s study, the association between the kelp and ancestry-informative alleles is not consistent throughout the archipelago, casting further doubt on the implication of these alleles in local adaptation.
The study of Fraïsse et al. [2] is therefore an important contribution to evolutionary biology because 1) it provides an empirical demonstration that alleles of foreign origin can be pivotal to detect fine-scale connectivity patterns and 2) it represents a test case of Bierne et al. [3]’s coupling hypothesis, whereby introgressed alleles also enhance patterns of genetic-environment associations. Since genomic scan or GWAS approaches fail to clearly reveal loci involved in local adaptation, how can we disentangle environment-driven selection from intrinsic reproductive barriers and habitat-associated connectivity? A related question is whether we can reliably identify cases of adaptive introgression, which have increasingly been put forward as a mechanism involved in adaptation [4]. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer, and the safest way to go is to rely – where possible – on independent information [5], in particular functional studies of the detected loci, as is for example the case in the mimetic butterfly Heliconius literature (e. g., [6]) where several loci controlling colour pattern variation are well characterized.

References

[1] Gagnaire, P.-A., Broquet, T., Aurelle, D., Viard, F., Souissi, A., Bonhomme, F., Arnaud-Haond, S., & Bierne, N. (2015). Using neutral, selected, and hitchhiker loci to assess connectivity of marine populations in the genomic era. Evolutionary Applications, 8, 769–786. doi: 10.1111/eva.12288
[2] Fraïsse, C., Haguenauer, A., Gerard, K., Weber, A. A.-T., Bierne, N., & Chenuil, A. (2018). Fine-grained habitat-associated genetic connectivity in an admixed population of mussels in the small isolated Kerguelen Islands. bioRxiv, 239244, ver. 4 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Evol Biol. doi: 10.1101/239244
[3] Bierne, N., Welch, J., Loire, E., Bonhomme, F., & David, P. (2011). The coupling hypothesis: why genome scans may fail to map local adaptation genes. Molecular Ecology, 20, 2044–2072. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2011.05080.x
[4] Hedrick, P. W. (2013). Adaptive introgression in animals: examples and comparison to new mutation and standing variation as sources of adaptive variation. Molecular Ecology, 22, 4606–4618. doi: 10.1111/mec.12415
[5] Ravinet, M., Faria, R., Butlin, R. K., Galindo, J., Bierne, N., Rafajlović, M., Noor, M. A. F., Mehlig, B., & Westram, A. M. (2017). Interpreting the genomic landscape of speciation: a road map for finding barriers to gene flow. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 30, 1450–1477. doi: 10.1111/jeb.13047.
[6] Jay, P., Whibley, A., Frézal, L., Rodríguez de Cara, M. A., Nowell, R. W., Mallet, J., Dasmahapatra, K. K., & Joron, M. (2018). Supergene evolution triggered by the introgression of a chromosomal inversion. Current Biology, 28, 1839–1845.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.04.072

Fine-grained habitat-associated genetic connectivity in an admixed population of mussels in the small isolated Kerguelen IslandsChristelle Fraïsse, Anne Haguenauer, Karin Gerard, Alexandra Anh-Thu Weber, Nicolas Bierne, Anne Chenuil<p>Reticulated evolution -i.e. secondary introgression / admixture between sister taxa- is increasingly recognized as playing a key role in structuring infra-specific genetic variation and revealing cryptic genetic connectivity patterns. When admi...Hybridization / Introgression, Phylogeography & Biogeography, Population Genetics / GenomicsMarianne Elias2017-12-28 14:16:16 View
22 Feb 2023
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Increased birth rank of homosexual males: disentangling the older brother effect and sexual antagonism hypothesis

Evolutionary or proximal explanations for human male homosexual mate preference?

Recommended by ORCID_LOGO based on reviews by Ray Blanchard and 1 anonymous reviewer

Natural populations do not consist of only perfectly adapted individuals. If they did, of course, there would be no fodder for evolution by natural selection. And natural selection is operating all the time, winnowing out less well adapted phenotypes through differential reproduction and survival. Demonstrations of natural selection modifying characters-state distributions to bring phenotypes closer to their optima abound in the evolution literature, with examples of short- and long-term changes in phenotype and allele frequencies.  

However, evolutionary biologists know that populations cannot reach their adaptive peaks. Natural selection is tracking a moving target, always with some generations of lag time. The adaptive landscape is multidimensional, so the optimal combination of multiple character states may be impossible because of constraints and trade-offs. Natural selection does not operate alone or in isolation – new mutations and migrants that were selected under other conditions will inject locally non-adaptive genetic variation and genetic drift can change allele frequencies in random directions. We understand these processes that generate and maintain less advantageous variants on a continuous gradient from an optimal phenotype in a fitness landscape. More puzzling are heritable polymorphisms with distinct morphologies, physiologies or behaviours maintained in populations despite their measurably lower reproductive success. But a complete model of evolution must also be able to accommodate these Darwinian paradoxes.

Raymond et al. (2023) investigate one such Darwinian paradox: In humans, male homosexual mate preference is heritable and is associated with a large reduction in offspring production but nonetheless occurs at relatively high frequencies in most human populations. Furthermore, multiple studies have found that homosexual men come from families that are, on average, larger than those of heterosexual men and that homosexual men have, on average, higher birth rank than do heterosexual men, i.e., having more older siblings and, particularly, more older brothers. Two types of mechanisms consistent with these observations have been proposed: 1) An evolutionary mechanism of sex-antagonistic pleiotropy, whereby highly fecund mothers are more likely to produce homosexual sons, and 2) A mechanistic explanation whereby successive male pregnancies alter the uterine environment by increasing the probability of an immune reaction by the mother to her male fetus, altering development of sexually dimorphic brain structures relevant to sexual orientation.

In this article, the authors explore these two mechanisms of sex-antagonistic effects (AE) and fraternal birth order effects (FBOE) and test how well they account for patterns of male homosexuality in population and family data. Clearly, these two effects are somewhat confounded because high birth ranks can only occur in large families. If, indeed, the probability of male homosexuality increases with increasing numbers of (maternal) older brothers, homosexual males will be more common in larger families. Similarly, if high female fecundity leads to a higher probability of male homosexuality via sex-antagonistic effects, homosexual males will, on average, have more older brothers. To disentangle the actions of these two effects the authors modelled the relationship between birth rank and population fecundity and investigated whether AE or FBOE modified this relationship for homosexual men.  Simulation results were compared with aggregated population data from 13 countries.  Family data on individuals’ sexual preference, birth rank and number of male and female siblings from France, Greece and Indonesia were analysed with generalised linear models and Bayesian approaches to test for a signal of AE or FBOE. 

These analyses revealed a significant older-brother effect (FBOE) explaining patterns of occurrence of homosexuality in population and family data but no significant independent sex-antagonistic effect (AE). Thus larger family sizes of homosexual men appear due to the older-brother effect, with individuals of high birth rank coming necessarily from large sibships. The simulation approach also revealed that modelling a fraternal birth order effect (FBOE), such that individuals with more older brothers are more likely to be homosexual, generates an artefactual older sister effect simply because homosexual men are overrepresented at higher birth ranks. Older-sister effects reported in the literature may, therefore, be statistical artefacts of an underlying older-brother effect.

This paper is interesting for a number of reasons. It does an excellent job of explaining, identifying and dealing with estimation biases and testing for artefactual relationships generated by collinearity. It applies state-of-the art analytical/statistical tools. It breaks down two colinear effects and shows that only one really explains phenotypic variation. This is a great example of how to disentangle correlated variables that may or may not both contribute to trait variation. But most intriguingly, we are left without evidence for an evolutionary mechanism that compensates the large fitness cost associated with male homosexuality in humans. How can we explain high heritability maintained in the face of strong directional selection that should erode heritable genetic variation? The usual suspects include cryptic compensatory mechanisms yet to be discovered or flawed estimates of selection or heritability. For example, data on heritability of male homosexual mate preference in humans come from twin studies and twins share birth rank as well as alleles. Thus it is possible that heritability is over-estimated, including the environmental component associated with birth rank. 

If, as the authors demonstrate here, birth rank is the strongest predictor of male homosexual mate preference, selection may be acting on a non-heritable plastic component of phenotypic variation. This could explain why heritable variation is not exhausted by selection, rendering the paradox less paradoxical, but fails to provide an adaptive explanation for the maintenance of male homosexual mate preference. 

References

Raymond M., Turek D., Durand V., Nila S., Suryobroto B., Vadez J., Barthes J., Apostolou M. and Crochet P.-A. (2023) Increased birth rank of homosexual males: disentangling the older brother effect and sexual antagonism hypothesis. bioRxiv, 2022.02.22.481477, ver. 4 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.02.22.481477

Increased birth rank of homosexual males: disentangling the older brother effect and sexual antagonism hypothesisMichel Raymond, Daniel Turek, Valerie Durand, Sarah Nila, Bambang Suryobroto, Julien Vadez, Julien Barthes, Menelaos Apostolou, Pierre-André Crochet<p style="text-align: justify;">Male homosexual orientation remains a Darwinian paradox, as there is no consensus on its evolutionary (ultimate) determinants. One intriguing feature of homosexual men is their higher male birth rank compared to het...Life History, Other, Phenotypic Plasticity, Reproduction and SexJacqui A. Shykoff2022-03-03 11:28:44 View
20 Dec 2017
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Renewed diversification following Miocene landscape turnover in a Neotropical butterfly radiation

The influence of environmental change over geological time on the tempo and mode of biological diversification, revealed by Neotropical butterflies

Recommended by based on reviews by Delano Lewis and 1 anonymous reviewer

The influence of environmental change over geological time on the tempo and mode of biological diversification is a hot topic in biogeography. Of central interest are questions about where, when, and how fast lineages proliferated, suffered extinction, and migrated in response to tectonic events, the waxing and waning of dominant biomes, etc. In this context, the dynamic conditions of the Miocene have received much attention, from studies of many clades and biogeographic regions. Here, Chazot et al. [1] present an exemplary analysis of butterflies (tribe Ithomiini) in the Neotropics, examining their diversification across the Andes and Amazon. They infer sharp contrasts between these regions in the late Miocene: accelerated diversification during orogeny of the Andes, and greater extinction in the Amazon associated during the Pebas system, with interchange and local diversification increasing following the Pebas during the Pliocene. Two features of this study stand out. First is the impressive taxon sampling (340 out of 393 extant species). Second is the use of ancestral range reconstructions to compute per-lineage rates of colonization between regions, and rates of speciation within regions, through time. The latter allows for relatively fine-grained comparisons across the 2 fundamental dimensions of historical biogeography, space and time, and is key to the main results. The method resonated with me because I performed a similar analysis in a study showing evidence for uplift-driven diversification in the Hengduan Mountains of China [2]. This analysis is complemented by a variety of other comparative methods for inferring variable diversification across clades, through time, and in response to external factors. Overall, it represents a very nice contribution to our understanding of the effects of Miocene/Pliocene environmental change on the evolution of Neotropical biodiversity. **References** [1] Chazot N, Willmott KR, Lamas G, Freitas AVL, Piron-Prunier F, Arias CF, Mallet J, De-Silva DL and Elias M. 2017. Renewed diversification following Miocene landscape turnover in a Neotropical butterfly radiation. BioRxiv 148189, ver 4 of 19th December 2017. doi: [10.1101/148189](https://doi.org/10.1101/148189) [2] Xing Y, and Ree RH. 2017. Uplift-driven diversification in the Hengduan Mountains, a temperate biodiversity hotspot. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114: E3444-E3451. doi: [10.1073/pnas.1616063114](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1616063114)

Renewed diversification following Miocene landscape turnover in a Neotropical butterfly radiationNicolas Chazot, Keith R. Willmott, Gerardo Lamas, André V.L. Freitas, Florence Piron-Prunier, Carlos F. Arias, James Mallet, Donna Lisa De-Silva, Marianne EliasThe Neotropical region has experienced a dynamic landscape evolution throughout the Miocene, with the large wetland Pebas occupying western Amazonia until 11-8 my ago and continuous uplift of the Andes mountains along the western edge of South Ame...Macroevolution, Phylogenetics / Phylogenomics, Phylogeography & BiogeographyRichard H Ree2017-06-12 11:55:14 View
03 Oct 2018
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Range size dynamics can explain why evolutionarily age and diversification rate correlate with contemporary extinction risk in plants

Are both very young and the very old plant lineages at heightened risk of extinction?

Recommended by based on reviews by Dan Greenberg and 1 anonymous reviewer

Human economic activity is responsible for the vast majority of ongoing extinction, but that does not mean lineages are being affected willy-nilly. For amphibians [1] and South African flowering plants [2], young species have a somewhat higher than expected chance of being threatened with extinction. In contrast, older Australian marsupial lineages seem to be more at risk [3]. Both of the former studies suggested that situations leading to peripheral isolation might simultaneously increase ongoing speciation and current threat via small geographic range, while the authors of the latter study suggested that older species might have evolved increasingly narrow niches. Here, Andrew Tanentzap and colleagues [4] dig deeper into the putative links between species age, niche breadth and threat status. Across 500-some plant genera worldwide, they find that, indeed, ""younger"" species (i.e. from younger and faster-diversifying genera) were more likely to be listed as imperiled by the IUCN, consistent with patterns for amphibians and African plants. Given this, results from their finer-level analyses of conifers are initially bemusing: here, ""older"" (i.e., on longer terminal branches) species were at higher risk. This would make conifers more like Australian marsupials, with the rest of the plants being more like amphibians. However, here where the data were more finely grained, the authors detected a second interesting pattern: using an intriguing matched-pair design, they detect a signal of conifer species niches seemingly shrinking as a function of age. The authors interpret this as consistent with increasing specialization, or loss of ancestral warm wet habitat, over paleontological time. It is true that conifers in general are older than plants more generally, with some species on branches that extend back many 10s of millions of years, and so a general loss of suitable habitat makes some sense. If so, both the pattern for all plants (small initial ranges heightening extinction) and the pattern for conifers (eventual increasing specialization or habitat contraction heightening extinction) could occur, each on a different time scale. As a coda, the authors detected no effect of age on threat status in palms; however, this may be both because palms have already lost species to climate-change induced extinction, and because they are thought to speciate more via long-distance dispersal and adaptive divergence then via peripheral isolation.
Given how quickly ranges can change, how hard it is to measure niche breadth, and the qualitatively different time scales governing past diversification and present-day extinction drivers, this is surely not the last word on the subject, even for plants. However, even the hint of a link between drivers of extinction in the Anthropocene and drivers of diversification through the ages is intellectually exciting and, perhaps, even, somehow, of practical importance.

References

[1] Greenberg, D. A., & Mooers, A. Ø. (2017). Linking speciation to extinction: Diversification raises contemporary extinction risk in amphibians. Evolution Letters, 1, 40–48. doi: 10.1002/evl3.4
[2] Davies, T. J., Smith, G. F., Bellstedt, D. U., Boatwright, J. S., Bytebier, B., Cowling, R. M., Forest, F., et al. (2011). Extinction risk and diversification are linked in a plant biodiversity hotspot. PLoS Biology, 9:e1000620. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000620
[3] Johnson, C. N., Delean S., & Balmford, A. (2002). Phylogeny and the selectivity of extinction in Australian marsupials. Animal Conservation, 5, 135–142. doi: 10.1017/S1367943002002196
[4] Tanentzap, A. J., Igea, J., Johnston, M. G., & Larcombe, M. G. (2018). Range size dynamics can explain why evolutionarily age and diversification rate correlate with contemporary extinction risk in plants. bioRxiv, 152215, ver. 5 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Evol Biol. doi: 10.1101/152215

Range size dynamics can explain why evolutionarily age and diversification rate correlate with contemporary extinction risk in plantsAndrew J. Tanentzap, Javier Igea, Matthew G. Johnston, Matthew J. Larcombe<p>Extinction threatens many species, yet few factors predict this risk across the plant Tree of Life (ToL). Taxon age is one factor that may associate with extinction if occupancy of geographic and adaptive zones varies with time, but evidence fo...Macroevolution, Phylogenetics / Phylogenomics, Phylogeography & BiogeographyArne Mooers2018-02-01 21:01:19 View
24 Oct 2019
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Testing host-plant driven speciation in phytophagous insects : a phylogenetic perspective

Phylogenetic approaches for reconstructing macroevolutionary scenarios of phytophagous insect diversification

Recommended by based on reviews by Brian O'Meara and 1 anonymous reviewer

Plant-animal interactions have long been identified as a major driving force in evolution. However, only in the last two decades have rigorous macroevolutionary studies of the topic been made possible, thanks to the increasing availability of densely sampled molecular phylogenies and the substantial development of comparative methods. In this extensive and thoughtful perspective [1], Jousselin and Elias thoroughly review current hypotheses, data, and available macroevolutionary methods to understand how plant-insect interactions may have shaped the diversification of phytophagous insects. First, the authors review three main hypotheses that have been proposed to lead to host-plant driven speciation in phytophagous insects: the ‘escape and radiate’, ‘oscillation’, and ‘musical chairs’ scenarios, each with their own set of predictions. Jousselin and Elias then synthesize a vast core of recent studies on different clades of insects, where explicit phylogenetic approaches have been used. In doing so, they highlight heterogeneity in both the methods being used and predictions being tested across these studies and warn against the risk of subjective interpretation of the results. Lastly, they advocate for standardization of phylogenetic approaches and propose a series of simple tests for the predictions of host-driven speciation scenarios, including the characterization of host-plant range history and host breadth history, and diversification rate analyses. This helpful review will likely become a new point of reference in the field and undoubtedly help many researchers formalize and frame questions of plant-insect diversification in future studies of phytophagous insects.

References

[1] Jousselin, E., Elias, M. (2019). Testing Host-Plant Driven Speciation in Phytophagous Insects: A Phylogenetic Perspective. arXiv, 1910.09510, ver. 1 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Evol Biol. https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.09510v1

Testing host-plant driven speciation in phytophagous insects : a phylogenetic perspective Emmanuelle Jousselin, Marianne Elias <p>During the last two decades, ecological speciation has been a major research theme in evolutionary biology. Ecological speciation occurs when reproductive isolation between populations evolves as a result of niche differentiation. Phytophagous ...Macroevolution, Phylogenetics / Phylogenomics, Speciation, Species interactionsHervé Sauquet2019-02-25 17:31:33 View
27 Jul 2020
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Evolution of the DAN gene family in vertebrates

An evolutionary view of a biomedically important gene family

Recommended by based on reviews by 2 anonymous reviewers

This manuscript [1] investigates the evolutionary history of the DAN gene family—a group of genes important for embryonic development of limbs, kidneys, and left-right axis speciation. This gene family has also been implicated in a number of diseases, including cancer and nephropathies. DAN genes have been associated with the inhibition of the bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling pathway. Despite this detailed biochemical and functional knowledge and clear importance for development and disease, evolution of this gene family has remained understudied. The diversification of this gene family was investigated in all major groups of vertebrates. The monophyly of the gene members belonging to this gene family was confirmed. A total of five clades were delineated, and two novel lineages were discovered. The first lineage was only retained in cephalochordates (amphioxus), whereas the second one (GREM3) was retained by cartilaginous fish, holostean fish, and coelanth. Moreover, the patterns of chromosomal synteny in the chromosomal regions harboring DAN genes were investigated. Additionally, the authors reconstructed the ancestral gene repertoires and studied the differential retention/loss of individual gene members across the phylogeny. They concluded that the ancestor of gnathostome vertebrates possessed eight DAN genes that underwent differential retention during the evolutionary history of this group. During radiation of vertebrates, GREM1, GREM2, SOST, SOSTDC1, and NBL1 were retained in all major vertebrate groups. At the same time, GREM3, CER1, and DAND5 were differentially lost in some vertebrate lineages. At least two DAN genes were present in the common ancestor of vertebrates, and at least three DAN genes were present in the common ancestor of chordates. Therefore the patterns of retention and diversification in this gene family appear to be complex. Evolutionary slowdown for the DAN gene family was observed in mammals, suggesting selective constraints. Overall, this article puts the biomedical importance of the DAN family in the evolutionary perspective.

References

[1] Opazo JC, Hoffmann FG, Zavala K, Edwards SV (2020) Evolution of the DAN gene family in vertebrates. bioRxiv, 794404, ver. 3 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Evolutionary Biology. doi: 10.1101/794404

Evolution of the DAN gene family in vertebratesJuan C. Opazo, Federico G. Hoffmann, Kattina Zavala, Scott V. Edwards<p>The DAN gene family (DAN, Differential screening-selected gene Aberrant in Neuroblastoma) is a group of genes that is expressed during development and plays fundamental roles in limb bud formation and digitation, kidney formation and morphogene...Molecular EvolutionKateryna Makova2019-10-15 16:43:13 View
29 Sep 2022
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How many sirtuin genes are out there? evolution of sirtuin genes in vertebrates with a description of a new family member

Making sense of vertebrate sirtuin genes

Recommended by based on reviews by Filipe Castro, Nicolas Leurs and 1 anonymous reviewer

Sirtuin proteins are class III histone deacetylases that are involved in a variety of fundamental biological functions mostly related to aging. These proteins are located in different subcellular compartments and are associated with different biological functions such as metabolic regulation, stress response, and cell cycle control [1]. In mammals, the sirtuin gene family is composed of seven paralogs (SIRT1-7) grouped into four classes [2]. Due to their involvement in maintaining cell cycle integrity, sirtuins have been studied as a way to understand fundamental mechanisms governing longevity [1]. Indeed, the downregulation of sirtuin genes with aging seems to explain much of the pathophysiology that accumulates with aging [3]. Biomedical studies have thus explored the potential therapeutic implications of sirtuins [4] but whether they can effectively be used as molecular targets for the treatment of human diseases remains to be demonstrated [1]. Despite this biomedical interest and some phylogenetic analyses of sirtuin paralogs mostly conducted in mammals, a comprehensive evolutionary analysis of the sirtuin gene family at the scale of vertebrates was still lacking.

In this preprint, Opazo and collaborators [5] took advantage of the increasing availability of whole-genome sequences for species representing all main groups of vertebrates to unravel the evolution of the sirtuin gene family. To do so, they undertook a phylogenomic approach in its original sense aimed at improving functional predictions by evolutionary analysis [6] in order to inventory the full vertebrate sirtuin gene repertoire and reconstruct its precise duplication history. Harvesting genomic databases, they extracted all predicted sirtuin proteins and performed phylogenetic analyses based on probabilistic inference methods. Maximum likelihood and Bayesian analyses resulted in well-resolved and congruent phylogenetic trees dividing vertebrate sirtuin genes into three major clades. These analyses also revealed an additional eighth paralog that was previously overlooked because of its restricted phyletic distribution. This newly identified sirtuin family member (named SIRT8) was recovered with unambiguous statistical support as a sister-group to the SIRT3 clade. Comparative genomic analyses based on conserved gene synteny confirmed that SIRT8 was present in all sampled non-amniote vertebrate genomes (cartilaginous fish, bony fish, coelacanth, lungfish, and amphibians) except cyclostomes. SIRT8 has thus most likely been lost in the last common ancestor of amniotes (mammals, reptiles, and birds). Discovery of such previously unknown genes in vertebrates is not completely surprising given the plethora of high-quality genomes now available. However, this study highlights the importance of considering a broad taxonomic sampling to infer evolutionary patterns of gene families that have been mostly studied in mammals because of their potential importance for human biology.

Based on its phylogenetic position as closely related to SIRT3 within class I, it could be predicted that the newly identified SIRT8 paralog likely has a deacetylase activity and is probably located in mitochondria. To test these evolutionary predictions, Opazo and collaborators [5] conducted further bioinformatics analyses and functional experiments using the elephant shark (Callorhinchus milii) as a model species. RNAseq expression data were analyzed to determine tissue-specific transcription of sirtuin genes in vertebrates, including SIRT8 found to be mainly expressed in the ovary, which suggests a potential role in biological processes associated with reproduction. The elephant shark SIRT8 protein sequence was used with other vertebrates for comparative analyses of protein structure modeling and subcellular localization prediction both pointing to a probable mitochondrial localization. The protein localization and its function were further characterized by immunolocalization in transfected cells, and enzymatic and functional assays, which all confirmed the prediction that SIRT8 proteins are targeted to the mitochondria and have deacetylase activity. The extensive experimental efforts made in this study to shed light on the function of this newly discovered gene are both rare and highly commendable.

Overall, this work by Opazo and collaborators [5] provides a comprehensive phylogenomic study of the sirtuin gene family in vertebrates based on detailed evolutionary analyses using state-of-the-art phylogenetic reconstruction methods. It also illustrates the power of adopting an integrative comparative approach supplementing the reconstruction of the duplication history of the gene family with complementary functional experiments in order to elucidate the function of the newly discovered SIRT8 family member. These results provide a reference phylogenetic framework for the evolution of sirtuin genes and the further functional characterization of the eight vertebrate paralogs with potential relevance for understanding the cellular biology of aging and its associated diseases in human.

References

[1] Vassilopoulos A, Fritz KS, Petersen DR, Gius D (2011) The human sirtuin family: Evolutionary divergences and functions. Human Genomics, 5, 485. https://doi.org/10.1186/1479-7364-5-5-485

[2] Yamamoto H, Schoonjans K, Auwerx J (2007) Sirtuin Functions in Health and Disease. Molecular Endocrinology, 21, 1745–1755. https://doi.org/10.1210/me.2007-0079

[3] Morris BJ (2013) Seven sirtuins for seven deadly diseases ofaging. Free Radical Biology and Medicine, 56, 133–171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2012.10.525

[4] Bordo D Structure and Evolution of Human Sirtuins. Current Drug Targets, 14, 662–665. http://dx.doi.org/10.2174/1389450111314060007

[5] Opazo JC, Vandewege MW, Hoffmann FG, Zavala K, Meléndez C, Luchsinger C, Cavieres VA, Vargas-Chacoff L, Morera FJ, Burgos PV, Tapia-Rojas C, Mardones GA (2022) How many sirtuin genes are out there? evolution of sirtuin genes in vertebrates with a description of a new family member. bioRxiv, 2020.07.17.209510, ver. 5 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology.  https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.17.209510

[6] Eisen JA (1998) Phylogenomics: Improving Functional Predictions for Uncharacterized Genes by Evolutionary Analysis. Genome Research, 8, 163–167. https://doi.org/10.1101/gr.8.3.163

How many sirtuin genes are out there? evolution of sirtuin genes in vertebrates with a description of a new family memberJuan C. Opazo, Michael W. Vandewege, Federico G. Hoffmann, Kattina Zavala, Catalina Meléndez, Charlotte Luchsinger, Viviana A. Cavieres, Luis Vargas-Chacoff, Francisco J. Morera, Patricia V. Burgos, Cheril Tapia-Rojas, Gonzalo A. Mardones<p style="text-align: justify;">Studying the evolutionary history of gene families is a challenging and exciting task with a wide range of implications. In addition to exploring fundamental questions about the origin and evolution of genes, disent...Molecular EvolutionFrédéric Delsuc Filipe Castro, Anonymous, Nicolas Leurs2022-05-12 16:06:04 View
26 Sep 2024
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The impact of social complexity on the efficacy of natural selection in termites

Evolutionary trajectories of social transitions: Higher social complexity is associated with lower effective population size and reduced efficacy of selection in termites

Recommended by ORCID_LOGO based on reviews by 2 anonymous reviewers

A comprehensive study by Roux et al 2024 investigates the impact of eusociality on the efficacy of natural selection in termites, with and additional focus on whether higher levels of social complexity are associated with lower effective population size (Ne) and relaxed purifying selection.

Eusociality is characterized by a division of reproductive labor, cooperative care of offspring, and overlapping generations, and has evolved independently across various animal taxa with the most complex social systems found in Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, ants) and termites. Because reproduction is limited to a few individuals, this leads to a reduced effective population size (Ne), which impacts genome evolution. Smaller Ne increases the influence of genetic drift, weakening the efficiency of natural selection and allowing the accumulation of weakly deleterious mutations. This phenomenon, known as the "drift barrier," alters the mutation-selection balance in eusocial organisms.

Studies in a range of social arthropods including ants, termites, crustaceans and spiders have shown an elevated ratio of nonsynonymous to synonymous substitutions (dN/dS), indicating relaxed purifying selection due to small Ne. In termite species with complex social structures, such as those with large colonies and high caste specialization, there are reports of higher dN/dS ratios compared to simpler social species. This suggests that higher social complexity, reflected in traits like nesting strategies and developmental pathways, further reduces Ne and the effectiveness of natural selection. 

The authors address these hypotheses by exploring the genomic impact of eusociality in termites (Isoptera) taking two approaches: First, they analyze transcriptome data from 66 Blattodea species and calculate the ratio of non-synonymous to synonymous mutations (dN/dS) as an indicator of natural selection efficiency and effective population size. They analyses reveal an increased dN/dS ratio in termites compared to other Blattodea species, reinforcing the notion that convergent evolution toward eusociality significantly reduces effective population size and weakens natural selection efficiency across the genome. Additionally, a comparison of 68 termite transcriptomes shows that this effect is more pronounced in species with higher social complexity. This is exciting as it advances our understanding of how increasing complexity in social organization decreases Ne and the efficiency of natural selection. The study substantiates the notion that social transitions follow evolutionary trajectories where lower and Ne and increasing drift have negative consequences for genome evolution (Ma et al 2024).

References

Camille Roux, Alice Ha, Arthur Weyna, Morgan Lode, Jonathan Romiguier (2024) The impact of social complexity on the efficacy of natural selection in termites. bioRxiv, ver.2 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Evol Biol. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.04.26.591327

Jilong Ma, Jesper Bechsgaard, Anne Aagaard, Palle Villesen, Trine Bilde, Mikkel Heide Schierup (2024) Sociality in spiders is an evolutionary dead-end. 
bioRxiv 2024.04.22.590577. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.04.22.590577

The impact of social complexity on the efficacy of natural selection in termitesCamille Roux, Alice Ha, Arthur Weyna, Morgan Lode, Jonathan Romiguier<p style="text-align: justify;">In eusocial species, reproduction is monopolized by a few reproductive individuals. From the perspective of population genetics, this implies that the effective population size (Ne<em>)</em> of these organisms is li...Molecular EvolutionTrine Bilde2024-04-30 12:10:20 View
11 Jun 2019
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A bird’s white-eye view on neosex chromosome evolution

Young sex chromosomes discovered in white-eye birds

Recommended by based on reviews by Gabriel Marais, Melissa Wilson and 1 anonymous reviewer

Recent advances in next-generation sequencing are allowing us to uncover the evolution of sex chromosomes in non-model organisms. This study [1] represents an example of this application to birds of two Sylvioidea species from the genus Zosterops (commonly known as white-eyes). The study is exemplary in the amount and types of data generated and in the thoroughness of the analysis applied. Both male and female genomes were sequenced to allow the authors to identify sex-chromosome specific scaffolds. These data were augmented by generating the transcriptome (RNA-seq) data set. The findings after the analysis of these extensive data are intriguing: neoZ and neoW chromosome scaffolds and their breakpoints were identified. Novel sex chromosome formation appears to be accompanied by translocation events. The timing of formation of novel sex chromosomes was identified using molecular dating and appears to be relatively recent. Yet first signatures of distinct evolutionary patterns of sex chromosomes vs. autosomes could be already identified. These include the accumulation of transposable elements and changes in GC content. The changes in GC content could be explained by biased gene conversion and altered recombination landscape of the neo sex chromosomes. The authors also study divergence and diversity of genes located on the neo sex chromosomes. Here their findings appear to be surprising and need further exploration. The neoW chromosome already shows unique patterns of divergence and diversity at protein-coding genes as compared with genes on either neoZ or autosomes. In contrast, the genes on the neoZ chromosome do not display divergence or diversity patterns different from those for autosomes. This last observation is puzzling and I believe should be explored in further studies. Overall, this study significantly advances our knowledge of the early stages of sex chromosome evolution in vertebrates, provides an example of how such a study could be conducted in other non-model organisms, and provides several avenues for future work.

References

[1] Leroy T., Anselmetti A., Tilak M.K., Bérard S., Csukonyi L., Gabrielli M., Scornavacca C., Milá B., Thébaud C. and Nabholz B. (2019). A bird’s white-eye view on neo-sex chromosome evolution. bioRxiv, 505610, ver. 4 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Evolutionary Biology. doi: 10.1101/505610

A bird’s white-eye view on neosex chromosome evolutionThibault Leroy, Yoann Anselmetti, Marie-Ka Tilak, Sèverine Bérard, Laura Csukonyi, Maëva Gabrielli, Céline Scornavacca, Borja Milá, Christophe Thébaud, Benoit Nabholz<p>Chromosomal organization is relatively stable among avian species, especially with regards to sex chromosomes. Members of the large Sylvioidea clade however have a pair of neo-sex chromosomes which is unique to this clade and originate from a p...Molecular Evolution, Population Genetics / GenomicsKateryna Makova2019-01-24 14:17:15 View
18 Jan 2021
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Trait plasticity and covariance along a continuous soil moisture gradient

Another step towards grasping the complexity of the environmental response of traits

Recommended by ORCID_LOGO based on reviews by 2 anonymous reviewers

One can only hope that one day, we will be able to evaluate how the ecological complexity surrounding natural populations affects their ability to adapt. This is more like a long term quest than a simple scientific aim. Many steps are heading in the right direction. This paper by Monroe and colleagues (2021) is one of them.
Many ecological and genetic mechanisms shape the evolutionary potential of phenotypic trait variation and many of them involve environmental heterogeneity (Pujol et al 2018). To date, we cannot look into these ecological and genetic mechanisms without oversimplifying their effects. We often look into trait variation one trait at a time albeit the variation of multiple phenotypic traits is often linked at the genetic or environmental level. As a consequence, we put our conclusions at risk by not accounting for the reciprocal impacts of trait changes upon each other (Teplitsky et al 2014). We also usually restrict the study of a continuous gradient of environmental conditions to a few conditions because it would otherwise be impossible to model its environmental effect. As a consequence, we miss the full picture of the continuous often nonlinear phenotypic plastic response. Whether the trait undergo threshold effect changes thereby remains obscured to us. Collectively, these issues impede our ability to understand how selection shapes the ecological strategy of organisms under variable environments.
In this paper, Monroe and colleagues (2021) propose an original approach that raised to these two challenges. They analysed phenotypic plastic changes in response to a continuous environment in a multidimensional trait space, namely the response of Brachypodium plant developmental and physiological traits to a continuous gradient of soil moisture. They used dry down experimental treatments to produce the continuous soil moisture gradient and compared the plant capacity to use water between annual B. distachyon and perennial B. sylvaticum. Their results revealed the best mathematical functions that model the nonlinear curvature of the continuous plastic response of Brachypodium plants. This work reinforces our view that nonlinear plastic responses can result in greater or lesser trait values at any stage of the environmental gradient that were unexpected on the basis of linear predictors (Gienapp and Brommer 2014). Their findings also imply that different threshold responses characterize different genotypes. These could otherwise have been missed by a classical approach. By shedding light on unforeseen interactions between traits that make their correlation vary along the nonlinear response, they were able to describe more accurately Brachypodium ecological strategies and the changes in evolutionary constraints along the soil moisture gradient.
Their empirical approach allows to test what environmental conditions maximises the opportunity for selection to shape trait variation. For example, it revealed unforeseen divergence in potentially adaptive mechanisms or life history strategies – and not just trait values – between annual and perennial species of Brachypodium. Behind every environmental variation of the constraints to the future evolutionary change of multiple traits, we can expect that the evolutionary history of the populations shaped their trait genetic correlations. Investigating the nonlinear signature of adaptive evolution across continuous environments will get us into uncharted territory.
Our ability to predict the adaptive potential of species is limited. With their approach of continuous environmental gradients beyond linearity, Monroe and collaborators (2021) improve our understanding of plant phenotypic responses and open a brand new range of exciting developments. As they mention: "the opportunity for scaling up" their approach is big. To illustrate this prospect, I can easily think of an example: the quantitative genetic random regression model. This model allows to use any degree of genetic relatedness in a wild population to estimate the genetic variation of phenotypic plastic reaction norms (Nussey et al 2007, Pujol and Galaud 2013). However, in this approach, only a few modalities of the environmental gradient are used to model nonlinear phenotypic plastic responses. From there, it is rather intuitive. Combining the best of these two approaches (continuity of genetic relatedness in the wild & continuity of environmental gradient in experiments) could open ground breaking new perspectives in research.

References

Gienapp P. & J.E. Brommer. 2014. Evolutionary dynamics in response to climate change. In: Charmentier A, Garant D, Kruuk LEB, editors. Quantitative genetics in the wild. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Oxford. pp. 254–273. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199674237.003.0015
Monroe, J. G., Cai, H., and Des Marais, D. L. (2020). Trait plasticity and covariance along a continuous soil moisture gradient. bioRxiv, 2020.02.17.952853, ver. 5 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Evol Biol. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.17.952853
Pujol et al. (2018). The missing response to selection in the wild. Trends in ecology & evolution, 33(5), 337-346. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2018.02.007
Pujol, B., and Galaud, J. P. (2013). A practical guide to quantifying the effect of genes underlying adaptation in a mixed genomics and evolutionary ecology approach. Botany Letters, 160(3-4), 197-204. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/12538078.2013.799045
Nussey, D. H., Wilson, A. J., and Brommer, J. E. (2007). The evolutionary ecology of individual phenotypic plasticity in wild populations. Journal of evolutionary biology, 20(3), 831-844. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1420-9101.2007.01300.x
Teplitsky et al. (2014). Assessing multivariate constraints to evolution across ten long-term avian studies. PLoS One, 9(3), e90444. doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0090444

Trait plasticity and covariance along a continuous soil moisture gradientJ Grey Monroe, Haoran Cai, David L Des Marais<p>Water availability is perhaps the greatest environmental determinant of plant yield and fitness. However, our understanding of plant-water relations is limited because it is primarily informed by experiments considering soil moisture variabilit...Phenotypic PlasticityBenoit Pujol2020-02-20 16:34:40 View