Steven Van Belleghem, Dick Roelofs, and Frederik Hendrickx (2015)
Evolutionary history of a dispersal-associated locus across sympatric and allopatric divergent populations of a wing-polymorphic beetle across Atlantic Europe
Molecular Ecology, 24:890-908.
Studying the evolutionary history of trait divergence, in particular those related to
dispersal capacity, is of major interest for the process of local adaptation and metapopulation
dynamics. Here, we reconstruct the evolution of different alleles at the
nuclear-encoded mitochondrial NADP+-dependent isocitrate dehydrogenase (mtIdh)
locus of the ground beetle Pogonus chalceus that are differentially and repeatedly
selected in short- and long-winged populations in response to different hydrological
regimes at both allopatric and sympatric scales along the Atlantic European coasts.
We sequenced 2788 bp of the mtIdh locus spanning a ~7-kb genome region and compared
its variation with that of two supposedly neutral genes. mtIdh sequences show
(i) monophyletic clustering of the short-winged associated mtIDH-DE haplotypes
within the long-winged associated mtIDH-AB haplotypes, (ii) a more than tenfold
lower haplotype diversity associated with the mtIDH-DE alleles compared to the
mtIDH-AB alleles and (iii) a high number of fixed nucleotide differences between
both mtIDH haplotype clusters. Coalescent simulations suggest that this observed
sequence variation in the mtIdh locus is most consistent with a singular origin in a
partially isolated subpopulation, followed by a relatively recent spread of the mtIDHDE
allele in short-winged populations along the Atlantic coast. These results demonstrate
that even traits associated with decreased dispersal capacity can rapidly spread
and that reuse of adaptive alleles plays an important
Peer Review, International Redaction Board, Impact Factor
Gene Flow: genetics, Genetic Variation, Genotype, Isoenzymes, Biological Evolution, Genetic, Landscape Genetics, Genetic Speciation, *Adaptation, Bayesion computation, Adaptation, Complementary: genetics, Haplotypes, Evolutionary Biology
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