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Antagonistic experimental coevolution with a parasite increases host recombination frequency

BACKGROUND: One of the big remaining challenges in evolutionary biology is to understand the evolution and maintenance of meiotic recombination. As recombination breaks down successful genotypes, it should be selected for only under very limited conditions. Yet, recombination is very common and phyl...

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Autores principales: Kerstes, Niels AG, Bérénos, Camillo, Schmid-Hempel, Paul, Wegner, K Mathias
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3293731/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22330615
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-12-18
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author Kerstes, Niels AG
Bérénos, Camillo
Schmid-Hempel, Paul
Wegner, K Mathias
author_facet Kerstes, Niels AG
Bérénos, Camillo
Schmid-Hempel, Paul
Wegner, K Mathias
author_sort Kerstes, Niels AG
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: One of the big remaining challenges in evolutionary biology is to understand the evolution and maintenance of meiotic recombination. As recombination breaks down successful genotypes, it should be selected for only under very limited conditions. Yet, recombination is very common and phylogenetically widespread. The Red Queen Hypothesis is one of the most prominent hypotheses for the adaptive value of recombination and sexual reproduction. The Red Queen Hypothesis predicts an advantage of recombination for hosts that are coevolving with their parasites. We tested predictions of the hypothesis with experimental coevolution using the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum, and its microsporidian parasite, Nosema whitei. RESULTS: By measuring recombination directly in the individuals under selection, we found that recombination in the host population was increased after 11 generations of coevolution. Detailed insights into genotypic and phenotypic changes occurring during the coevolution experiment furthermore helped us to reconstruct the coevolutionary dynamics that were associated with this increase in recombination frequency. As coevolved lines maintained higher genetic diversity than control lines, and because there was no evidence for heterozygote advantage or for a plastic response of recombination to infection, the observed increase in recombination most likely represented an adaptive host response under Red Queen dynamics. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides direct, experimental evidence for an increase in recombination frequency under host-parasite coevolution in an obligatory outcrossing species. Combined with earlier results, the Red Queen process is the most likely explanation for this observation.
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spelling pubmed-32937312012-03-06 Antagonistic experimental coevolution with a parasite increases host recombination frequency Kerstes, Niels AG Bérénos, Camillo Schmid-Hempel, Paul Wegner, K Mathias BMC Evol Biol Research Article BACKGROUND: One of the big remaining challenges in evolutionary biology is to understand the evolution and maintenance of meiotic recombination. As recombination breaks down successful genotypes, it should be selected for only under very limited conditions. Yet, recombination is very common and phylogenetically widespread. The Red Queen Hypothesis is one of the most prominent hypotheses for the adaptive value of recombination and sexual reproduction. The Red Queen Hypothesis predicts an advantage of recombination for hosts that are coevolving with their parasites. We tested predictions of the hypothesis with experimental coevolution using the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum, and its microsporidian parasite, Nosema whitei. RESULTS: By measuring recombination directly in the individuals under selection, we found that recombination in the host population was increased after 11 generations of coevolution. Detailed insights into genotypic and phenotypic changes occurring during the coevolution experiment furthermore helped us to reconstruct the coevolutionary dynamics that were associated with this increase in recombination frequency. As coevolved lines maintained higher genetic diversity than control lines, and because there was no evidence for heterozygote advantage or for a plastic response of recombination to infection, the observed increase in recombination most likely represented an adaptive host response under Red Queen dynamics. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides direct, experimental evidence for an increase in recombination frequency under host-parasite coevolution in an obligatory outcrossing species. Combined with earlier results, the Red Queen process is the most likely explanation for this observation. BioMed Central 2012-02-13 /pmc/articles/PMC3293731/ /pubmed/22330615 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-12-18 Text en Copyright ©2012 Kerstes et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Kerstes, Niels AG
Bérénos, Camillo
Schmid-Hempel, Paul
Wegner, K Mathias
Antagonistic experimental coevolution with a parasite increases host recombination frequency
title Antagonistic experimental coevolution with a parasite increases host recombination frequency
title_full Antagonistic experimental coevolution with a parasite increases host recombination frequency
title_fullStr Antagonistic experimental coevolution with a parasite increases host recombination frequency
title_full_unstemmed Antagonistic experimental coevolution with a parasite increases host recombination frequency
title_short Antagonistic experimental coevolution with a parasite increases host recombination frequency
title_sort antagonistic experimental coevolution with a parasite increases host recombination frequency
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3293731/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22330615
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-12-18
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