Evolution

Of birds and bees: where do species come from?

July 4, 2018July 4, 2018Sean Buckley9 Comments

This is Part 2 of a four part miniseries on the process of speciation: how we get new species, how we can see this in action, and the end results of the process. This week we’re taking a look at how new species are formed from natural selection. For Part 1, on the identity and concept of the species, click here.

The Origin of Species

Despite Darwin’s scientifically ground-breaking revelations over 150 years ago, the truth of the origin of species has remained a puzzling and complex question in biology. While the fundamental concepts of Darwin’s theory remain heavily supported – that groups which become separated from one another and undergo differing evolutionary pathways through natural selection may over time form new species – the mechanisms leading to this are mysterious. Even though the heritable component of evolution (DNA) was not uncovered for a hundred years after publishing ‘On the Origin of Species’, Darwin’s theory can largely explain many patterns of the formation of species on Earth.

The population-speciation continuum

The understanding that groups that are separated progress into species through differential adaptation leads to a phenomenon as the ‘speciation continuum’: all populations exist at some point on the continuum, with those that are most differentiated (i.e. most progressed) are distinct species, whereas those least differentiated are closely related or the same population. Whether or not populations progress along this continuum, and how fast this progression happens, depends on the difference in selective pressure and speed of evolution in the populations. Even if two populations are physically separated, they might not necessarily form new species if the separation is too short-term or if they do not evolve in different ways. Even if they do differentially evolve, whether or not they develop reproductive isolation is not always consistent.

Speciation continuum figure — A vague diagram of the population-speciation continuum. In this figure, we have two different organisms (Taxa 1 and Taxa 2) and we’re comparing their genetic similarity/differences (the grey arrow). At the bottom left of the chart, there are very few genetic differences between the two, likely indicated that they are from the same population (or closely related e.g. siblings). As we progress towards the upper left, the two start to diverge from one another, first to different populations of the same species, different subspecies of the same overarching species, and eventually becoming so different that they must be new species (i.e. are genetically incompatible and thus reproductively isolated). Exactly where this cut-off is a bit of a grey area (the species boundary) and is unlikely to be consistent across species.

Furthermore, how these populations are changing may affect the rate or success of speciation: if the traits that evolve differently across the population also cause them to be unable to breed, then they may quickly become reproductively isolated and thus new species. For example, Momigliano et al. (2017) demonstrated the fastest known rate of speciation (within 3000 generations) in a marine vertebrate in a species of flounders. Flounders that adapted to a higher salinity environment became reproductively isolated from their sister population as their sperm could not tolerate the high salinity conditions (directly preventing breeding and causing reproductive isolation). This strong and rapid selection to an environment, and its subsequent selection on reproductive ability, was cutely described as a “magic trait”.

Modes of speciation

Darwin’s model of speciation describes what is called “allopatric speciation”, whereby physical separation of populations by some form of barrier (often attributed to changes such as climatic shifts, mountain range formations or island separation) isolates populations which then independently evolve until they reach a point of differentiation where they can no longer interbreed. Thus, they are now separate species (based on the Biological Species Concept, anyway). Allopatric speciation has traditionally believed to be the most common process of speciation, and is consistently used as the model for teaching and understanding speciation.

While this physical separation is the strongest and most immediately obvious method of speciation, other forms without geographic barriers have been documented. “Sympatric speciation” involves speciation events where there are no apparent geographical barriers that separate populations: instead, other factors may be driving their divergence from one another. This can relate to different microenvironments within the same area, where one population migrates and adapts to an environment which excludes the other population. This is referred to as “ecological speciation” and has been particularly noted within lake fish radiating into different habitats. There are a number of other mechanisms by which sympatric speciation could also occur, however, including temporal isolation (e.g. different flowering times in plants), sexual selection (e.g. a mutation leads to a new physiology that is more attractive to others with that physiology) or polyploidy (e.g. a ‘mutation’ causes an organism to have multiple copies of its genome, making it effectively reproductively isolated from its neighbours due to incompatible sex cells).

Allopatric vs sympatric speciation — Representations of allopatric and sympatric speciation using our friends the fruit-eating cats. A) An example of allopatric speciation. Similar to how we’ve seen it before, a geographic barrier (the dashed green line) separates the ancestral species in two; each of these groups then evolve in different directions based on the different environmental pressures of each zone. After enough divergence, these two groups become reproductively isolated from one another and thus are different species. B) An example of sympatric speciation. We start with a single species of red apple eating cats, which form one contiguous group. A mutation within the group produces a new type of fruit-eating cat; one that feeds on green apples (grey cats). Because these feed on a different food source, they move into a different part of the environment, associating with other green apple-eating cats and less with red apple-eating cats. Over time, and with strong enough selection for apple preferences, these two types may become different species.

Sympatric speciation has received a great deal of controversy, due to the fact that some levels of gene flow could occur across the two populations with relative ease (compared to allopatric populations). This gene flow should cause the two populations to reconnect and prevent each population from evolving differently from one another (as changes in one population’s gene pool will be introduced into the other). Speciation with gene flow has been shown for some species, based on the idea that the pressure of natural selection (i.e. being adapted to the right habitat) is much stronger than the level of gene flow (i.e. the introduction of non-adapted genes from the other population), so the two populations still diverge genetically.

Gene flow across populations (through hybridisation) will balance out the different allele frequencies of the two gene pools, preventing adaptive alleles from moving towards fixation as per the standard natural selection process. While the effect of gene flow might slow the process, taking longer for the populations to diverge to the species level, speciation can still be achieved. Thus, the balance of gene flow and adaptive divergence is critical in determining whether ecological speciation is possible.

Sympatric speciation figure — A slightly more convoluted example of sympatric speciation. A) We start with a single species of small orange cats (top row), which can share readily share genes with one another. A mutation within the species creates a new type of cat; one that is much larger and has tufted ears. Although there are somewhat morphologically distinct from one another, they’re still genetically similar enough to continue to breed and share genes across the two types. However, with the big size comes a new ecological niche and these big cats differentially evolve to be grey (to hide better from their new bigger prey, perhaps) whilst the non-mutated group stays the same size and colour. Because large grey cats will preferentially breed with other large grey cats and not with small orange cats, this group genetically diverges from the ancestor to form a new species. B) A representation of the genetic changes between the two groups over time. The figure shows the genome (the grey bar) of the cat; the y-axis is the level of genetic differentiation between the two (measured as Fst). The different coloured sections represent specific genes within the genome, whilst the dashed line represents the average Fst across the whole genome. At initial divergence (top), there is little difference between the two. However, as the new big cats form and evolve, we can see the average Fst increase, with strong peaks around particular genes (blue and green; those related to the changes in physiology). As the two groups continue to diverge, this average raises even higher until genetic changes cause the reproduction-related genes (red and yellow) to become too different to allow for hybridisation, making the two species reproductively isolated (the red X in A)).

The reality of species

While the distinction between divergent populations and species might be a complex one, development in genomic technologies and greater understanding of evolutionary patterns is helping us uncover the real origin of species. And while species might not be as concrete a concept as one might expect, understanding the processes that generate new species and diversity is critical for understanding the diversity within nature that we see today, and also the potential diversity for the future (and why protecting said diversity is important!).

What is a species, anyway?

June 27, 2018June 26, 2018Sean Buckley9 Comments

This is Part 1 of a four part miniseries on the process of speciation; how we get new species, how we can see this in action, and the end results of the process. This week, we’ll start with a seemingly obvious question: what is a species?

The definition of a ‘species’

‘Species’ are a human definition of the diversity of life. When we talk about the diversity of life, and the myriad of creatures and plants on Earth, we often talk about species diversity. This might seem glaringly obvious, but there’s one key issue: what is a species, anyway? While we might like to think of them as discrete and obvious groups (a dog is definitely not the same species as a cat, for example), the concept of a singular “species” is actually the result of human categorisation.

In reality, the diversity of life is spread across a huge spectrum of differentiation: from things which are closely related but still different to us (like chimps), to more different again (other mammals), to hardly relatable at all (bacteria and plants). So, what is the cut-off for calling something a species, and not a different genus, family, or kingdom? Or alternatively, at what point do we call a specific sub-group of a species as a sub-species, or another species entirely?

This might seem like a simple question: we look at two things, and they look different, so they must be different species, right? Well, of course, nature is never simple, and the line between “different” and “not different” is very blurry. Here’s an example: consider that you knew nothing about the history, behaviour or genetics of dogs. If you simply looked at all the different breeds of dogs on Earth, you might suggest that there are hundreds of species of domestic dogs. That seems a little excessive though, right? In fact, the domestic dog, Eurasian wolf, and the Australian dingo are all the same species (but different subspecies, along with about 38 others…but that’s another issue altogether).

Dogs — Morphology can be misleading for identifying species. In this example, we have A) a dog, B) also a dog, C) still a dog, D) yet another dog, and E) not a dog. For the record, **A-D** are all Canis lupus of some variety; A and B are domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris), C is a dingo (Canis lupus dingo) and D is a grey wolf (Canis lupus lupus). E, however, is the Ethiopian wolf, Canis simensis.

How do we describe species?

This method of describing species based on how they look (their morphology) is the very traditional approach to taxonomy. And for a long time, it seemed to work…until we get to more complex scenarios like the domestic dog. Or scenarios where two species look fairly similar, but in reality have evolved entirely differently for a very, very long time. Or groups which look close to more than one other species. So how do we describe them instead?

Cats and foxes — A), a fox. B), a cat. C), a foxy cat? A catty fox? A cat-fox hybrid? Something unrelated to cat or a fox?

Believe it or not, there are dozens of ways of deciding what is a species and what isn’t. In Speciation (2004), Coyne & Orr count at least 25 different reported Species Concepts that had been suggested within science, based on different requirements such as evolutionary history, genetic identity, or ecological traits. These different concepts can often contradict one another about where to draw the line between species…so what do we use?

The Biological Species Concept (BSC)

The most commonly used species concept is called the Biological Species Concept (BSC), which denotes that “species are groups of interbreeding natural populations that are reproductively isolated from other such groups” (Mayr, 1942). In short, a population is considered a different species to another population if an individual from one cannot reliably breed to form fertile, viable offspring with an individual from the other. We often refer to this as “reproductive isolation.” It’s important to note that reproductive isolation doesn’t mean they can’t breed at all: just that the hybrid offspring will not live a healthy life and produce its own healthy offspring.

For example, a horse and zebra can breed to produce a zorse, however zorse are fundamentally infertile (due to the different number of chromosomes between a horse and a zebra) and thus a horse is a different species to a zebra. However, a German Shepherd and a chihuahua can breed and make a hybrid mutt, so they are the same species.

You might naturally ask why reproductive isolation is apparently so important for deciding species. Most directly, this means that groups don’t share gene pools at all (since genetic information is introduced and maintained over time through breeding events), which causes them to be genetically independent of one another. Thus, changes in the genetic make-up of one species shouldn’t (theoretically) transfer into the gene pool of another species through hybrids. This is an important concept as the gene pool of a species is the basis upon which natural selection and evolution act: thus, reproductively isolated species may evolve in very different manners over time.

RI example — An example of how reproductive isolation maintains genetic and evolutionary independence of species. In A), our cat groups are robust species, reproductively isolated from one another (as shown by the black box). When each species undergoes natural selection and their genetic variation changes (colour changes on the cats and DNA), these changes are kept within each lineage. This contrasts to B), where genetic changes can be transferred between species. Without reproductive isolation, evolution in the orange lineage and the blue lineage can combine within hybrids, sharing the evolutionary pathways of both ancestral species.

Pitfalls of the BSC

Just because the BSC is the most used concept doesn’t make it infallible, however. Many species on Earth don’t easily demonstrate reproductive isolation from one another, nor does the concept even make sense for asexually reproducing species. If an individual reproduced solely asexually (like many bacteria, or even some lizards), then by the BSC definition every individual is an entirely different species…which seems a little excessive. Even in sexually reproducing organisms, it can be hard to establish reproductive isolation, possibly because the species never come into contact physically.

This raises the debate of whether two species could, let alone will, hybridise in nature, which can be difficult to determine. And if two species do produce hybrid offspring, assessing their fertility or viability can be difficult to detect without many generations of breeding and measurements of fitness (hybrids may not be sustainable in nature if they are not well adapted to their environment and thus the two species are maintained as separate identities).

Hybrid birds — An example of unfit hybrids causing effective reproductive isolation. In this example, we have two different bird species adapted to very different habitats; a smaller, long-tailed bird (left) adapted to moving through dense forest, and a large, longer-legged bird (right) adapted to traversing arid deserts. When (or if) these two species hybridised, the resultant offspring would be middle of the road, possessing too few traits to be adaptive in either the forest or the desert and no fitting intermediate environment available. Measuring exactly how unfit this hybrid would be is a difficult task in establishing species boundaries.

Integrative taxonomy

To try and account for the issues with the BSC, taxonomists try to push for the usage of “integrative taxonomy”. This means that species should be defined by multiple different agreeing concepts, such as reproductive isolation, genetic differentiation, behavioural differences, and/or ecological traits. The more traits that can separate the two, the greater support there is for the species to be separated: if they disagree, then more information is needed to determine exactly whether or not that should be called different species. Debates about taxonomy are ongoing and are likely going to be relevant for years to come, but form critical components of understanding biodiversity, patterns of evolution, and creating effective conservation legislation to protect endangered or threatened species (for whichever groups we decide are species).

How did pygmy perch swim across the desert?

June 20, 2018June 18, 2018Sean Buckley3 Comments

“Pygmy perch swam across the desert”

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.

Southern_pygmy_perch 1 MHammer — A male southern pygmy perch, which usually measures 6-8 cm long.

To my honest surprise, the paper has received a decent amount 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.

Pygmyperch_distributionmap — The distributions of pygmy perch species across Australia. The dots and labels refer to different sampling sites used in the study. A: the distribution of western pygmy perches, and essentially the extent of the southwest WA biodiversity hotspot region. B: the distribution of eastern pygmy perches, excluding N. oxleyana which occurs in upper NSW/lower QLD (indicated in C). C: the distributions relative to the map of Australia. The black region in the middle indicates 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.

Nullarbor Plain photo — See? Nothing here. Photo taken near Watson, South Australia. Credit: Benjamin Rimmer.

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.

MCC_geographylabelled — The phylogeny of pygmy perches produced by this study, containing 45 different individuals across all species of pygmy perch. Species are labelled in the tree in brackets, and their geographic location (east or west) is denoted by the colour on the right. This tree clearly shows more than one E/W separation, as not all eastern species are within the same clade. For example, despite being an eastern species, N. variegata is more closely related to Nth. balstoni or N. vittata than to the other eastern species (N. australis, N. obscura, N. oxleyana and N. ‘flindersi’.

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.

BGB_figure — The ancestral area reconstruction of pygmy perches, estimated using the R package BioGeoBEARS. The different pie charts denote the relative probability of the possible distributions for the species or ancestor at that particular time; colours denote exactly where the distribution is (following the legend). As you can see, the oldest E/W split at 21 million years ago likely resulted from a single widespread ancestor, with it’s range split into an east and west group. The second E/W event, at 15 million years ago, most likely reflects a migration from east to west, resulting in the formation of the N. vittata species group. This coincides with the Nullarbor Plain, so it’s likely that changes in waterway patterns allowed some eastern pygmy perch to move westward as the area became more arid.

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.

Pygmy perch biogeo history — A diagram of the distribution of pygmy perch species over time, as suggested by the ancestral area reconstruction. A: the initial ancestor of pygmy perches was likely found throughout southern Australia. B: an unknown event splits the ancestor into an eastern and western group; the sole extant species of the W group is Nth. balstoni. C: the ancestor of the eastern pygmy perches spreads towards the west, entering part of the pre-Nullarbor region. D: due to changes in the hydrology of the area, some eastern pygmy perches (the maroon colour in C) are pushed towards the west; these form N. vittata species and N. pygmaea. The Nullarbor Plain forms and effectively cuts off the two groups from one another, isolating them.

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.

The direction of evolution: divergence vs. convergence

June 6, 2018June 7, 2018Sean Buckley6 Comments

Direction of evolution

We’ve talked previously on The G-CAT about how the genetic underpinning of certain evolutionary traits can change in different directions depending on the selective pressure it is under. Particularly, we can see how the frequency of different alleles might change in one direction or another, or stabilise somewhere in the middle, depending on its encoded trait. But thinking bigger picture than just the genetics of one trait, we can actually see that evolution as an entire process works rather similarly.

Divergent evolution

The classic view of the direction of evolution is based on divergent evolution. This is simply the idea that a particular species possess some ancestral trait. The species (or population) then splits into two (for one reason or another), and each one of these resultant species and populations evolves in a different way to the other. Over time, this means that their traits are changing in different directions, but ultimately originate from the same ancestral source.

Evidence for divergent evolution is rife throughout nature, and is a fundamental component of all of our understanding of evolution. Divergent evolution means that, by comparing similar traits in two species (called homologous traits), we can trace back species histories to common ancestors. Some impressive examples of this exist in nature, such as the number of bones in most mammalian species. Humans have the same number of neck bones as giraffes; thus, we can suggest that the ancestor of both species (and all mammals) probably had a similar number of neck bones. It’s just that the giraffe lineage evolved longer bones whereas other lineages did not.

Homology figure — A diagrammatic example of homologous structures in ‘hand’ bones. The coloured bones demonstrate how the same original bone structures have diverged into different forms. Source: BiologyWise.

Convergent evolution

But of course, evolution never works as simply as you want it to, and sometimes we can get the direct opposite pattern. This is called convergent evolution, and occurs when two completely different species independently evolve very similar (sometimes practically identical) traits. This is often caused by a limitation of the environment; some extreme demand of the environment requires a particular physiological solution, and thus all species must develop that trait in order to survive. An example of this would be the physiology of carnivorous marsupials like Tasmanian devils or thylacines: despite being in another Class, their body shapes closely resemble something more canid. Likely, the carnivorous diet places some constraints on physiology, particularly jaw structure and strength.

Convergent evol intelligence — A surprising example of convergent evolution is cognitive ability in apes and some bird groups (e.g. corvids). There’s plenty of other animal groups more related to each of these that don’t demonstrate the same level of cognitive reasoning (based on the traits listed in the centre): thus, we can conclude that cognition has evolved twice in very, very different lineages. Source: Emery & Clayton, 2004.

A more dramatic (and potentially obvious) example of convergent evolution would be wings and the power of flight. Despite the fact that butterflies, bees, birds and bats all have wings and can fly, most of them are pretty unrelated to one another. It seems much more likely that flight evolved independently multiple times, rather than the other 99% of species that shared the same ancestor lost the capacity of flight.

Parallel evolution

Sometimes convergent evolution can work between two species that are pretty closely related, but still evolved independently of one another. This is distinguished from other categories of evolution as parallel evolution: the main difference is that while both species may have shared the same start and end point, evolution has acted on each one independent of the other. This can make it very difficult to diagnose from convergent evolution, and is usually determined by the exact history of the trait in question.

Parallel evolution is an interesting field of research for a few reasons. Firstly, it provides a scenario in which we can more rigorously test expectations and outcomes of evolution in a particular environment. For example, if we find traits that are parallel in a whole bunch of fish species in a particular region, we can start to look at how that particular environment drives evolution across all fish species, as opposed to one species case studies.

Marsupial handedness.jpg — Here’s another weird example; different populations of marsupials (particularly kangaroos and wallabies) show preferential handedness depending on where the population is. That is, different populations of different species of marsupials shows parallel evolution of handedness, since they’re related to one another but have evolved it independently of the other species. Source: Giljov et al. (2015).

Following from that logic, it is then important to question the mechanisms of parallelism. From a genetic point of view, do these various species use the same genes (and genetic variants) to produce the same identical trait? Or are there many solutions to the selective question in nature? While these questions are rather complicated, and there has been plenty of evidence both for and against parallel genetic underpinning of parallel traits, it seems surprisingly often that many different genetic combinations can be used to get the same result. This gives interesting insight into how complex genetic coding of traits can be, and how creative and diverse evolution can be in the real world.

Where is evolution going?

Cat phylogeny — An example of all three types of evolutionary trajectory in a single phylogeny of cats (you know how we do it here at The G-CAT). This phylogeny consists of two distinct genera; one with one species (P. aliquam) and another of three species (the red box indicates their distance). Our species have three main physical traits: coat colour, ear tufts and tail shape. At the ancestral nodes of the tree, we can see what the ancestor of these species looked like for these three traits. Each of these traits has undergone a different type of evolution. The tufts on the ears are the result of divergent evolution, since F. tuftus evolved the trait differently to its nearest relative, F. griseo. Contrastingly, the orange coat colour of F. tuftus and P. aliquam are the result of convergent evolution: neither of these species are very closely related (remembering the red box) and evolved orange coats independently of one another (since their ancestors are grey). And finally, the fluffy tails of F. hispida and F. griseo can be considered parallel evolution, since they’re similar evolutionarily (same genus) but still each evolved tail fluff independently (not in the ancestor). This example is a little convoluted, but if you trace the history of each trait in the phylogeny you can more easily see these different patterns.

So, where is evolution going for nature? Well, the answer is probably all over the place, but steered by the current environmental circumstances. Predicting the evolutionary impacts of particular environmental change (e.g. climate change) is exceedingly difficult but a critical component of understanding the process of evolution and the future of species. Evolution continually surprises us with creative solution to complex problems and I have no doubt new mysteries will continue to be thrown at us as we delve deeper.

All the world in the palm of your hand: whole genome sequencing for evolution and conservation

May 30, 2018Sean Buckley4 Comments

Building an entire genome

If bigger is better, then biggest is best. Having the genome of a particular study species fully sequenced allows us to potentially look at all of the genetic variation in the entire gene pool: but how do we sequence the entirety of the genome? And what are the benefits of having a whole genome to refer to?

Whole genome assembly — A very, very simplified overview of whole genome sequencing. Similar to other genomic technologies, we start by fragmenting the genome into much smaller, easier to sequence parts (reads). We then use a computer algorithm which pieces these reads together into a consecutive sequence based on overlapping DNA sequence (like building a chain out of Lego blocks). From this assembled genome, we can then attach annotations using information from other species’ genomes or genetic studies, which can correlate a particular sequence to a gene, a function of that gene, and the resultant protein from these gene (although not always are all of these aspects included).

Well, assembling the whole genome of an organism for the first time is a very tricky process. It involves taking DNA sequence from only a few individuals, breaking them down into smaller fragments and multiplying these fragments into the billions (moreorless the same process used in other genomics technologies: the real difference is that we need the full breadth of the genome so that we don’t miss any spaces). From these fragments, we use a complex computer algorithm which builds up a consensus sequence like a Lego tower; by finding parts of sequences which overlap, the software figures out which pieces connect to one another. Hopefully, we eventually end up with one very long continuous sequence; the genome! Sometimes, we might end with a few very large blocks (called contigs), but this is also useful for analyses (correlated with how many/big blocks there are). With this full genome, we use information from other more completed genomes (such as those from model species like humans, mice or even worms) to figure out which sections of the genome relate to specific genes. We can then annotate these sections by labelling them as clear genes, complete with start and end point, and attach a particular physical function of that gene.

The benefits of whole genomes

Having an entire genome as a reference is an extremely helpful tool in conservation and evolutionary studies. The first, and perhaps most obvious benefit, is the sheer scale of the data we can use. By having the entirety of the genome available, we can use potentially billions of base pairs of sequence in our genetic analyses (for reference, the human genome is >3 billion base pairs long). Even if we don’t sequence the full genome for all of our samples, having a reference genome as basis for assembly our reduced datasets significantly improves the quantity and quality of sequences we can use.

Another very important benefit is the ability to prescribe function in our studies. Many of our processes for obtaining data, even for genomic technologies, use random and anonymous fragments of the genome. Although this is a cost-effective way to obtain a very large amount of data, it unfortunately means that we often have no idea which part of the genome our sequences came from. This means that we don’t know which sequences relate to specific genes, and even if we did we would have no idea what those genes are or do! But with an annotated genome, we can take even our fragmented sequence and check it against the genome and find out what genes are present.

Understanding adaptation

Based on that, it seems pretty obvious about exactly how having an annotated genome can help us in studies of adaptation. Knowing the functional aspect of our genetic data allows us to more directly determine how evolution is happening in nature; instead of only being able to say that two species are evolving differently from one another, for example, we can explicitly look at how they are evolving. Is one evolving tolerance to hotter temperatures? Are they evolving different genes to handle different diets? Are they evolving in response to an external influence, like a viral outbreak or changing climate? What are the physiological consequences of these changes? These questions are critical in understanding past and future evolution, and full genome analysis allows us to delve into them much deeper.

Manhattan plot example — A (slightly edited) figure of full genome comparisons between domestic dogs and wild wolves by Axelsson *et al.* (2013), with the aim of understanding the evolutionary changes associated with domestication. For avid readers, this figure probably looks familiar. This figure compares the genetic differentiation across the entire genome between dogs and wolves, with some sections of the genome (circled) showing clear differences. As there is an annotated dog genome, the authors then delved into these genes to understand the functional differences between the two. By comparing their genetic differences to functional genes, the authors can more explicitly suggest mechanisms or changes associated with the domestication process (such as adaptation to a starch-heavy and human-influenced diet).

This includes allowing us to better understand how adaptation actually works in nature. As we’ve discussed before, more traditional studies often assumed that single, or very few, genes were responsible for allowing a species to adapt and change, and that these genes had very strong effects on their physiology. But what we see far more often is polygenic adaptation; small changes in a very large number of genes which, combined together, allow the species to adapt and evolve. By having the entirety of the genome available, we are much more likely to capture all of the genes that are under natural selection in a particular population or species, painting a clearer picture of their evolutionary trajectory.

Understanding demography

The much larger dataset of full genomes is also important for understanding the non-adaptive parts of evolution; the demographic history. Given that selectively neutral impacts (e.g. reductions in population size) are likely to impact all of the genes in the gene pool somewhat equally, having a full genome allows us to more accurately infer the demographic state and historical patterns of species.

For both adaptive and non-adaptive variation, it is also important to consider what we call linkage disequilibrium. Genetic sequences that are physically close to each other in the genome will often be inherited together due to the imprecision of recombination (a fairly technical process, so I won’t delve into this): what this can mean is that if a gene is under very strong selection, then sequences around this gene will also look like they’re under selection too. This can give falsely positive adaptive genes (i.e. sequences that look like genes under selection but are just linked to a gene that is) or can interfere with demographic analyses (since they often assume no selection, or linkage to selection, on the sequences used). With a whole genome, we can actually estimate how far away a base pair has to be before it’s not linked anymore; we call these linkage blocks, and they’re very useful additions to analyses.

Linkage_example — An example of linkage as a process. We start with a particular sequence (top); during recombination, this sequence may randomly break and rearrange into different parts. In this example, I’ve simulated four different ‘breaks’ (dashed coloured lines) due to recombination. Each of these breaks leads to two separate blocks of fragments; for example, the break at the blue line results in the second two sequence blocks (middle). If we focus on one target base pair in the sequence (golden A), then we can see in some fragments it remains with certain bases, but sometimes it gets separated by the break. If we compare how often the golden A is in the same block (i.e. is co-inherited) as each of the other bases, across all 4 breaks, then we see that the bases that are closest to it (the golden A is represented by the golden bar) are almost always in the same block. This makes sense: the further away a base is from our target, the more likely that there will be a break between it. This is shown in the frequency distributions at the bottom: the left figure shows the actual frequencies of co-inheritance (i.e. linkage) using the top example and those 4 breaks. The right figure shows a more realistic depiction of how linkage looks in the genome; it rapidly decays as we move away from the target (although the width and rate of this can vary).

Improving conservation management

In a similar fashion to demography, full genome datasets can improve our estimates of relatedness and pedigrees in captive breeding programs. The massive scale of whole genomes allows us to more easily trace the genealogical history of individuals, allowing us to assign parents more accurately. This also helps with our estimations of genetic relatedness, arguably the most critical aspect of genetic-based breeding programs. This is particularly helpful for species with tricky mating patterns, such as polyamory, brood spawning or difficult to track organisms.

The way forwards

While many non-model species are still lacking in the available genomic information, whole genomes are progressively being sequenced for more and more species. As this astronomical dataset grows, our ability to investigate, discover and test theories about evolution, natural selection and conservation will also improve. Many projects already exist which aim specifically to increase the number of whole genomes available for certain taxonomic groups such as birds and bats: these will no doubt prove to be invaluable resources for future studies.

The G-cat

Dive head-first into the science of conservation, ecology, evolution and genetics