| 1. |
- Qu, Yanhua, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
-
The evolution of ancestral and species-specific adaptations in snowfinches at the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 10.1073/pnas.2012398118:13, s. e2012398118-e2012398118
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Species in a shared environment tend to evolve similar adaptations under the influence of their phylogenetic context. Using snowfinches, a monophyletic group of passerine birds (Passeridae), we study the relative roles of ancestral and species-specific adaptations to an extreme high-elevation environment, the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. Our ancestral trait reconstruction shows that the ancestral snowfinch occupied high elevations and had a larger body mass than most nonsnowfinches in Passeridae. Subsequently, this phenotypic adaptation diversified in the descendant species. By comparing high-quality genomes from representatives of the three phylogenetic lineages, we find that about 95% of genes under positive selection in the descendant species are different from those in the ancestor. Consistently, the biological functions enriched for these species differ from those of their ancestor to various degrees (semantic similarity values ranging from 0.27 to 0.5), suggesting that the three descendant species have evolved divergently from the initial adaptation in their common ancestor. Using a functional assay to a highly selective gene, DTL, we demonstrate that the nonsynonymous substitutions in the ancestor and descendant species have improved the repair capacity of ultraviolet-induced DNA damage. The repair kinetics of the DTL gene shows a twofold to fourfold variation across the ancestor and the descendants. Collectively, this study reveals an exceptional case of adaptive evolution to high-elevation environments, an evolutionary process with an initial adaptation in the common ancestor followed by adaptive diversification of the descendant species.
|
|
| 2. |
- Wang, Guo-Dong, et al.
(författare)
-
Out of southern East Asia : the natural history of domestic dogs across the world
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Cell Research. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 1001-0602 .- 1748-7838. ; 26:1, s. 21-33
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The origin and evolution of the domestic dog remains a controversial question for the scientific community, with basic aspects such as the place and date of origin, and the number of times dogs were domesticated, open to dispute. Using whole genome sequences from a total of 58 canids (12 gray wolves, 27 primitive dogs from Asia and Africa, and a collection of 19 diverse breeds from across the world), we find that dogs from southern East Asia have significantly higher genetic diversity compared to other populations, and are the most basal group relating to gray wolves, indicating an ancient origin of domestic dogs in southern East Asia 33 000 years ago. Around 15 000 years ago, a subset of ancestral dogs started migrating to the Middle East, Africa and Europe, arriving in Europe at about 10 000 years ago. One of the out of Asia lineages also migrated back to the east, creating a series of admixed populations with the endemic Asian lineages in northern China before migrating to the New World. For the first time, our study unravels an extraordinary journey that the domestic dog has traveled on earth.
|
|
| 3. |
- Wang, Guo-dong, et al.
(författare)
-
The genomics of selection in dogs and the parallel evolution between dogs and humans
- 2013
-
Ingår i: Nature Communications. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2041-1723. ; 4, s. 1860-
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The genetic bases of demographic changes and artificial selection underlying domestication are of great interest in evolutionary biology. Here we perform whole-genome sequencing of multiple grey wolves, Chinese indigenous dogs and dogs of diverse breeds. Demographic analysis show that the split between wolves and Chinese indigenous dogs occurred 32,000 years ago and that the subsequent bottlenecks were mild. Therefore, dogs may have been under human selection over a much longer time than previously concluded, based on molecular data, perhaps by initially scavenging with humans. Population genetic analysis identifies a list of genes under positive selection during domestication, which overlaps extensively with the corresponding list of positively selected genes in humans. Parallel evolution is most apparent in genes for digestion and metabolism, neurological process and cancer. Our study, for the first time, draws together humans and dogs in their recent genomic evolution.
|
|
