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Living on the edge: how philopatry maintains adaptive potential

Without genetic variation, species cannot cope with changing environments, and evolution does not proceed. In endangered species, adaptive potential may be eroded by decreased population sizes and processes that further reduce gene flow such as philopatry and local adaptations. Here, we focused on t...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Stiebens, Victor A., Merino, Sonia E., Roder, Christian, Chain, Frédéric J. J., Lee, Patricia L. M., Eizaguirre, Christophe
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3774223/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23720544
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.0305
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author Stiebens, Victor A.
Merino, Sonia E.
Roder, Christian
Chain, Frédéric J. J.
Lee, Patricia L. M.
Eizaguirre, Christophe
author_facet Stiebens, Victor A.
Merino, Sonia E.
Roder, Christian
Chain, Frédéric J. J.
Lee, Patricia L. M.
Eizaguirre, Christophe
author_sort Stiebens, Victor A.
collection PubMed
description Without genetic variation, species cannot cope with changing environments, and evolution does not proceed. In endangered species, adaptive potential may be eroded by decreased population sizes and processes that further reduce gene flow such as philopatry and local adaptations. Here, we focused on the philopatric and endangered loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) nesting in Cape Verde as a model system to investigate the link between adaptive potential and philopatry. We produced a dataset of three complementary genomic regions to investigate female philopatric behaviour (mitochondrial DNA), male-mediated gene flow (microsatellites) and adaptive potential (major histocompatibility complex, MHC). Results revealed genetically distinct nesting colonies, indicating remarkably small-scale philopatric behaviour of females. Furthermore, these colonies also harboured local pools of MHC alleles, especially at the margins of the population's distribution, which are therefore important reserves of additional diversity for the population. Meanwhile, directional male-mediated gene flow from the margins of distribution sustains the adaptive potential for the entire rookery. We therefore present the first evidence for a positive association between philopatry and locally adapted genomic regions. Contrary to expectation, we propose that philopatry conserves a high adaptive potential at the margins of a distribution, while asymmetric gene flow maintains genetic connectivity with the rest of the population.
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spelling pubmed-37742232013-09-30 Living on the edge: how philopatry maintains adaptive potential Stiebens, Victor A. Merino, Sonia E. Roder, Christian Chain, Frédéric J. J. Lee, Patricia L. M. Eizaguirre, Christophe Proc Biol Sci Research Articles Without genetic variation, species cannot cope with changing environments, and evolution does not proceed. In endangered species, adaptive potential may be eroded by decreased population sizes and processes that further reduce gene flow such as philopatry and local adaptations. Here, we focused on the philopatric and endangered loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) nesting in Cape Verde as a model system to investigate the link between adaptive potential and philopatry. We produced a dataset of three complementary genomic regions to investigate female philopatric behaviour (mitochondrial DNA), male-mediated gene flow (microsatellites) and adaptive potential (major histocompatibility complex, MHC). Results revealed genetically distinct nesting colonies, indicating remarkably small-scale philopatric behaviour of females. Furthermore, these colonies also harboured local pools of MHC alleles, especially at the margins of the population's distribution, which are therefore important reserves of additional diversity for the population. Meanwhile, directional male-mediated gene flow from the margins of distribution sustains the adaptive potential for the entire rookery. We therefore present the first evidence for a positive association between philopatry and locally adapted genomic regions. Contrary to expectation, we propose that philopatry conserves a high adaptive potential at the margins of a distribution, while asymmetric gene flow maintains genetic connectivity with the rest of the population. The Royal Society 2013-07-22 /pmc/articles/PMC3774223/ /pubmed/23720544 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.0305 Text en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ © 2013 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Stiebens, Victor A.
Merino, Sonia E.
Roder, Christian
Chain, Frédéric J. J.
Lee, Patricia L. M.
Eizaguirre, Christophe
Living on the edge: how philopatry maintains adaptive potential
title Living on the edge: how philopatry maintains adaptive potential
title_full Living on the edge: how philopatry maintains adaptive potential
title_fullStr Living on the edge: how philopatry maintains adaptive potential
title_full_unstemmed Living on the edge: how philopatry maintains adaptive potential
title_short Living on the edge: how philopatry maintains adaptive potential
title_sort living on the edge: how philopatry maintains adaptive potential
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3774223/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23720544
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.0305
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