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Evaluating the adaptive potential of the European eel: is the immunogenetic status recovering?
The recent increased integration of evolutionary theory into conservation programs has greatly improved our ability to protect endangered species. A common application of such theory links population dynamics and indices of genetic diversity, usually estimated from neutrally evolving markers. Howeve...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
PeerJ Inc.
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4830236/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27077000 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1868 |
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author | Baltazar-Soares, Miguel Bracamonte, Seraina E. Bayer, Till Chain, Frédéric J.J. Hanel, Reinhold Harrod, Chris Eizaguirre, Christophe |
author_facet | Baltazar-Soares, Miguel Bracamonte, Seraina E. Bayer, Till Chain, Frédéric J.J. Hanel, Reinhold Harrod, Chris Eizaguirre, Christophe |
author_sort | Baltazar-Soares, Miguel |
collection | PubMed |
description | The recent increased integration of evolutionary theory into conservation programs has greatly improved our ability to protect endangered species. A common application of such theory links population dynamics and indices of genetic diversity, usually estimated from neutrally evolving markers. However, some studies have suggested that highly polymorphic adaptive genes, such as the immune genes of the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC), might be more sensitive to fluctuations in population dynamics. As such, the combination of neutrally- and adaptively-evolving genes may be informative in populations where reductions in abundance have been documented. The European eel (Anguilla anguilla) underwent a drastic and well-reported decline in abundance in the late 20th century and still displays low recruitment. Here we compared genetic diversity indices estimated from neutral (mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites) and adaptive markers (MHC) between two distinct generations of European eels. Our results revealed a clear discrepancy between signatures obtained for each class of markers. Although mtDNA and microsatellites showed no changes in diversity between the older and the younger generations, MHC diversity revealed a contemporary drop followed by a recent increase. Our results suggest ongoing gain of MHC genetic diversity resulting from the interplay between drift and selection and ultimately increasing the adaptive potential of the species. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4830236 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-48302362016-04-13 Evaluating the adaptive potential of the European eel: is the immunogenetic status recovering? Baltazar-Soares, Miguel Bracamonte, Seraina E. Bayer, Till Chain, Frédéric J.J. Hanel, Reinhold Harrod, Chris Eizaguirre, Christophe PeerJ Conservation Biology The recent increased integration of evolutionary theory into conservation programs has greatly improved our ability to protect endangered species. A common application of such theory links population dynamics and indices of genetic diversity, usually estimated from neutrally evolving markers. However, some studies have suggested that highly polymorphic adaptive genes, such as the immune genes of the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC), might be more sensitive to fluctuations in population dynamics. As such, the combination of neutrally- and adaptively-evolving genes may be informative in populations where reductions in abundance have been documented. The European eel (Anguilla anguilla) underwent a drastic and well-reported decline in abundance in the late 20th century and still displays low recruitment. Here we compared genetic diversity indices estimated from neutral (mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites) and adaptive markers (MHC) between two distinct generations of European eels. Our results revealed a clear discrepancy between signatures obtained for each class of markers. Although mtDNA and microsatellites showed no changes in diversity between the older and the younger generations, MHC diversity revealed a contemporary drop followed by a recent increase. Our results suggest ongoing gain of MHC genetic diversity resulting from the interplay between drift and selection and ultimately increasing the adaptive potential of the species. PeerJ Inc. 2016-04-11 /pmc/articles/PMC4830236/ /pubmed/27077000 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1868 Text en ©2016 Baltazar-Soares et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. |
spellingShingle | Conservation Biology Baltazar-Soares, Miguel Bracamonte, Seraina E. Bayer, Till Chain, Frédéric J.J. Hanel, Reinhold Harrod, Chris Eizaguirre, Christophe Evaluating the adaptive potential of the European eel: is the immunogenetic status recovering? |
title | Evaluating the adaptive potential of the European eel: is the immunogenetic status recovering? |
title_full | Evaluating the adaptive potential of the European eel: is the immunogenetic status recovering? |
title_fullStr | Evaluating the adaptive potential of the European eel: is the immunogenetic status recovering? |
title_full_unstemmed | Evaluating the adaptive potential of the European eel: is the immunogenetic status recovering? |
title_short | Evaluating the adaptive potential of the European eel: is the immunogenetic status recovering? |
title_sort | evaluating the adaptive potential of the european eel: is the immunogenetic status recovering? |
topic | Conservation Biology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4830236/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27077000 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1868 |
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