When I was younger, I used to love visiting our local creek: it was a beautiful spot of nature a short walk from home. On a couple occasions, my Dad took me to the creek to catch yabbies – for a suburban kid, it was one of the few times I actually held and interacted with wild biodiversity, and helped foster my love for conservation and inquiry into biology. In the late 2000s to early 2010s, a likely combination of local pollution and extensive drought extirpated the yabbies from the creek – I would never see one in that creek again. I was devastated for the local loss of a fascinating creature, and the connection to nature it represented, but felt powerless to remedy the situation. To my knowledge, there are still no yabbies in that creek.
There are quite literally millions of species on Earth, ranging from the smallest of microbes to the largest of mammals. In fact, there are so many that we don’t actually have a good count on the sheer number of species and can only estimate it based on the species we actually know about. Unsurprisingly, then, the number of species vastly outweighs the number of people that research them, especially considering the sheer volumes of different aspects of species, evolution, conservation and their changes we could possibly study.
This is partly where the concept of a ‘model’ comes into it: it’s much easier to pick a particular species to study as a target, and use the information from it to apply to other scenarios. Most people would be familiar with the concept based on medical research: the ‘lab rat’ (or mouse). The common house mouse (Mus musculus) and the brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) are some of the most widely used models for understanding the impact of particular biochemical compounds on physiology and are often used as the testing phase of medical developments before human trials.
This is the fourth (and final) part of the miniseries on the genetics and process of speciation. To start from Part One, click here.
In last week’s post, we looked at how we can use genetic tools to understand and study the process of speciation, and particularly the transition from populations to species along the speciation continuum. Following on from that, the question of “how many species do I have?” can be further examined using genetic data. Sometimes, it’s entirely necessary to look at this question using genetics (and genomics).
Genetic tools to study species: the ‘Barcode of Life’
A classically employed method that uses DNA to detect and determine species is referred to as the ‘Barcode of Life’. This uses a very specific fragment of DNA from the mitochondria of the cell: the cytochrome c oxidase I gene, CO1. This gene is made of 648 base pairs and is found pretty well universally: this and the fact that CO1 evolves very slowly make it an ideal candidate for easily testing the identity of new species. Additionally, mitochondrial DNA tends to be a bit more resilient than its nuclear counterpart; thus, small or degraded tissue samples can still be sequenced for CO1, making it amenable to wildlife forensics cases. Generally, two sequences will be considered as belonging to different species if they are certain percentage different from one another.
Despite the apparent benefits of CO1, there are of course a few drawbacks. Most of these revolve around the mitochondrial genome itself. Because mitochondria are passed on from mother to offspring (and not at all from the father), it reflects the genetic history of only one sex of the species. Secondly, the actual cut-off for species using CO1 barcoding is highly contentious and possibly not as universal as previously suggested. Levels of sequence divergence of CO1 between species that have been previously determined to be separate (through other means) have varied from anywhere between 2% to 12%. The actual translation of CO1 sequence divergence and species identity is not all that clear.
Gene tree – species tree incongruences
One particularly confounding aspect of defining species based on a single gene, and with using phylogenetic-based methods, is that the history of that gene might not actually be reflective of the history of the species. This can be a little confusing to think about but essentially leads to what we call “gene tree – species tree incongruence”. Different evolutionary events cause different effects on the underlying genetic diversity of a species (or group of species): while these may be predictable from the genetic sequence, different parts of the genome might not be as equally affected by the same exact process.
A classic example of this is hybridisation. If we have two initial species, which then hybridise with one another, we expect our resultant hybrids to be approximately made of 50% Species A DNA and 50% Species B DNA (if this is the first generation of hybrids formed; it gets a little more complicated further down the track). This means that, within the DNA sequence of the hybrid, 50% of it will reflect the history of Species A and the other 50% will reflect the history of Species B, which could differ dramatically. If we randomly sample a single gene in the hybrid, we will have no idea if that gene belongs to the genealogy of Species A or Species B, and thus we might make incorrect inferences about the history of the hybrid species.
There are a number of other processes that could similarly alter our interpretations of evolutionary history based on analysing the genetic make-up of the species. The best way to handle this is simply to sample more genes: this way, the effect of variation of evolutionary history in individual genes is likely to be overpowered by the average over the entire gene pool. We interpret this as a set of individual gene trees contained within a species tree: although one gene might vary from another, the overall picture is clearer when considering all genes together.
Species delimitation
In earlier posts on The G-CAT, I’ve discussed the biogeographical patterns unveiled by my Honours research. Another key component of that paper involved using statistical modelling to determine whether cryptic species were present within the pygmy perches. I didn’t exactly elaborate on that in that section (mostly for simplicity), but this type of analysis is referred to as ‘species delimitation’. To try and simplify complicated analyses, species delimitation methods evaluate possible numbers and combinations of species within a particular dataset and provides a statistical value for which configuration of species is most supported. One program that employs species delimitation is Bayesian Phylogenetics and Phylogeography(BPP): to do this, it uses a plethora of information from the genetics of the individuals within the dataset. These include how long ago the different populations/species separated; which populations/species are most related to one another; and a pre-set minimum number of species (BPP will try to combine these in estimations, but not split them due to computational restraints). This all sounds very complex (and to a degree it is), but this allows the program to give you a statistical value for what is a species and what isn’t based on the genetics and statistical modelling.
The end result of a BPP run is usually reported as a species tree (e.g. a phylogenetic tree describing species relationships) and statistical support for the delimitation of species (0-1 for each species). Because of the way the statistical component of BPP works, it has been found to give extremely high support for species identities. This has been criticised as BPP can, at time, provide high statistical support for genetically isolated lineages (i.e. divergent populations) which are not actually species.
Improving species identities with integrative taxonomy
Due to this particular drawback, and the often complex nature of species identity, using solely genetic information such as species delimitation to define species is extremely rare. Instead, we use a combination of different analytical techniques which can include genetic-based evaluations to more robustly assign and describe species. In my own paper example, we suggested that up to three ‘species’ of N. vittata that were determined as cryptic species by BPP could potentially exist pending on further analyses. We did not describe or name any of the species, as this would require a deeper delve into the exact nature and identity of these species.
As genetic data and analytical techniques improve into the future, it seems likely that our ability to detect and determine species boundaries will also improve. However, the additional supported provided by alternative aspects such as ecology, behaviour and morphology will undoubtedly be useful in the progress of taxonomy.
As regular readers of The G-CAT are likely aware, my first ever scientific paper was published this week. The paper is largely the results of my Honours research (with some extra analysis tacked on) on the phylogenomics (the same as phylogenetics, but with genomic data) and biogeographic history of a group of small, endemic freshwater fishes known as the pygmy perch. There are a number of different messages in the paper related to biogeography, taxonomy and conservation, and I am really quite proud of the work.
To my honest surprise, the paper has received a decentamount of media attention following its release. Nearly all of these have focused on the biogeographic results and interpretations of the paper, which is arguably the largest component of the paper. In these media releases, the articles are often opened with “…despite the odds, new research has shown how a tiny fish managed to find its way across the arid Australian continent – more than once.” So how did they manage it? These are tiny fish, and there’s a very large desert area right in the middle of Australia, so how did they make it all the way across? And more than once?!
The Great (southern) Southern Land
To understand the results, we first have to take a look at the context for the research question. There are seven officially named species of pygmy perches (‘named’ is an important characteristic here…but we’ll go into the details of that in another post), which are found in the temperate parts of Australia. Of these, three are found with southwest Western Australia, in Australia’s only globally recognised biodiversity hotspot, and the remaining four are found throughout eastern Australia (ranging from eastern South Australia to Tasmania and up to lower Queensland). These two regions are separated by arid desert regions, including the large expanse of the Nullarbor Plain.
The Nullarbor Plain is a remarkable place. It’s dead flat, has no trees, and most importantly for pygmy perches, it also has no standing water or rivers. The plain was formed from a large limestone block that was pushed up from beneath the Earth approximately 15 million years ago; with the progressive aridification of the continent, this region rapidly lost any standing water drainages that would have connected the east to the west. The remains of water systems from before (dubbed ‘paleodrainages’) can be seen below the surface.
Biogeography of southern Australia
As one might expect, the formation of the Nullarbor Plain was a huge barrier for many species, especially those that depend on regular accessible water for survival. In many species of both plants and animals, we see in their phylogenetic history a clear separation of eastern and western groups around this time; once widely distributed species become fragmented by the plain and diverged from one another. We would most certainly expect this to be true of pygmy perch.
But our questions focus on what happened before the Nullarbor Plain arrived in the picture. More than 15 million years ago, southern Australia was a massively different place. The climate was much colder and wetter, even in central Australia, and we even have records of tropical rainforest habitats spreading all the way down to Victoria. Water-dependent animals would have been able to cross the southern part of the continent relatively freely.
Biogeography of the enigmatic pygmy perches
This is where the real difference between everything else and pygmy perch happens. For most species, we see only one east and west split in their phylogenetic tree, associated with the Nullarbor Plain; before that, their ancestors were likely distributed across the entire southern continent and were one continuous unit.
Not for pygmy perch, though. Our phylogenetic patterns show that there were multiple splits between eastern and western ancestral pygmy perch. We can see this visually within the phylogenetic tree; some western species of pygmy perches are more closely related, from an evolutionary perspective, to eastern species of pygmy perches than they are to other western species. This could imply a couple different things; either some species came about by migration from east to west (or vice versa), and that this happened at least twice, or that two different ancestral pygmy perches were distributed across all of southern Australia and each split east-west at some point in time. These two hypotheses are called “multiple invasion” and “geographic paralogy”, respectively.
So, which is it? We delved deeper into this using a type of analysis called ‘ancestral clade reconstruction’. This tries to guess the likely distributions of species ancestors using different models and statistical analysis. Our results found that the earliest east-west split was due to the fragmentation of a widespread ancestor ~20 million years ago, and a migration event facilitated by changing waterways from the Nullarbor Plain pushing some eastern pygmy perches to the west to form the second group of western species. We argue for more than one migration across Australia since the initial ancestor of pygmy perches must have expanded from some point (either east or west) to encompass the entirety of southern Australia.
So why do we see this for pygmy perch and no other species? Well, that’s the real mystery; out of all of the aquatic species found in southeast and southwest Australia, pygmy perch are one of the worst at migrating. They’re very picky about habitat, small, and don’t often migrate far unless pushed (by, say, a flood). It is possible that unrecorded extinct species of pygmy perch might help to clarify this a little, but the chances of finding a preserved fish fossil (let alone for a fish less than 8cm in size!) is extremely unlikely. We can really only theorise about how they managed to migrate.
What does this mean for pygmy perches?
Nearly all species of pygmy perch are threatened or worse in the conservation legislation; there have been many conservation efforts to try and save the worst-off species from extinction. Pygmy perches provide a unique insight to the history of the Australian climate and may be a key in unlocking some of the mysteries of what our land was like so long ago. Every species is important for conservation and even those small, hard-to-notice creatures that we might forget about play a role in our environmental history.