Parallel and convergent genomic changes underlie independent subterranean colonization across beetles

Adaptation to life in caves is often accompanied by dramatically convergent changes across distantly related taxa, epitomized by the loss or reduction of eyes and pigmentation. Nevertheless, the genomic underpinnings underlying cave-related phenotypes are largely unexplored from a macroevolutionary...

ver descrição completa

Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Balart García, Pau, Arístide, Leandro, Bradford, Tessa M., Beasley Hall, Perry G., Polak, Slavko, Cooper, Steven J. B., Fernández, Rosa
Tipo de documento: artigo
Estado:Versão publicada
Data de publicação:2023
País:Argentina
Recursos:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repositório:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Idioma:inglês
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/226990
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/226990
Access Level:Acceso aberto
Palavra-chave:MACROEVOLUTION
PHYLOGENOMICS
CAVE BEETLES
CONVERGENCE
COMPARATIVE GENOMICS
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1.6
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1
Descrição
Resumo:Adaptation to life in caves is often accompanied by dramatically convergent changes across distantly related taxa, epitomized by the loss or reduction of eyes and pigmentation. Nevertheless, the genomic underpinnings underlying cave-related phenotypes are largely unexplored from a macroevolutionary perspective. Here we investigate genome-wide gene evolutionary dynamics in three distantly related beetle tribes with at least six instances of independent colonization of subterranean habitats, inhabiting both aquatic and terrestrial underground systems. Our results indicate that remarkable gene repertoire changes mainly driven by gene family expansions occurred prior to underground colonization in the three tribes, suggesting that genomic exaptation may have facilitated a strict subterranean lifestyle parallelly across beetle lineages. The three tribes experienced both parallel and convergent changes in the evolutionary dynamics of their gene repertoires. These findings pave the way towards a deeper understanding of the evolution of the genomic toolkit in hypogean fauna.