Sympatric speciation of spiny mice, Acomys, unfolded transcriptomically at Evolution Canyon, Israel.

Journal Article (Journal Article)

Spiny mice, Acomys cahirinus, colonized Israel 30,000 y ago from dry tropical Africa and inhabited rocky habitats across Israel. Earlier, we had shown by mtDNA that A. cahirinus incipiently sympatrically speciates at Evolution Canyon I (EC I) in Mount Carmel, Israel because of microclimatic interslope divergence. The EC I microsite consists of a dry and hot savannoid "African" slope (AS) and an abutting humid and cool-forested "European" slope (ES). Here, we substantiate incipient SS in A. cahirinus at EC I based on the entire transcriptome, showing that multiple slope-specific adaptive complexes across the transcriptome result in two divergent clusters. Tajima's D distribution of the abutting Acomys interslope populations shows that the ES population is under stronger positive selection, whereas the AS population is under balancing selection, harboring higher genetic polymorphisms. Considerable sites of the two populations were differentiated with a coefficient of FST = 0.25-0.75. Remarkably, 24 and 37 putatively adaptively selected genes were detected in the AS and ES populations, respectively. The AS genes involved DNA repair, growth arrest, neural cell differentiation, and heat-shock proteins adapting to the local AS stresses of high solar radiation, drought, and high temperature. In contrast, the ES genes involved high ATP associated with energetics stress. The sharp ecological interslope divergence led to strong slope-specific selection overruling the interslope gene flow. Earlier tests suggested slope-specific mate choice. Habitat interslope-adaptive selection across the transcriptome and mate choice substantiate sympatric speciation (SS), suggesting its prevalence at EC I and commonality in nature.

Full Text

Duke Authors

Cited Authors

  • Li, K; Wang, H; Cai, Z; Wang, L; Xu, Q; Lövy, M; Wang, Z; Nevo, E

Published Date

  • July 19, 2016

Published In

Volume / Issue

  • 113 / 29

Start / End Page

  • 8254 - 8259

PubMed ID

  • 27370801

Pubmed Central ID

  • PMC4961164

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1091-6490

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1073/pnas.1608743113

Language

  • eng

Conference Location

  • United States