Journal
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
Volume 34, Issue 4, Pages 1008-1015Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msw277
Keywords
mangroves; convergent evolution; adaptive evolution; marginal environments; genomes
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [41130208, 91331202, 31600182]
- 985 Project [33000-31131105]
- Science Foundation of State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol [SKLBC16A35, SKLBC16A37]
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [16lgjc39]
- China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [2014M552264, 2015T80931]
- Chang Hungta Science Foundation of Sun Yat-Sen University
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When living organisms independently invade a new environment, the evolution of similar phenotypic traits is often observed. An interesting but contentious issue is whether the underlying molecular biology also converges in the new habitat. Independent invasions of tropical intertidal zones by woody plants, collectively referred to as mangrove trees, represent some dramatic examples. The high salinity, hypoxia, and other stressors in the new habitatmight have affected both genomic features and protein structures. Here, we developed a new method for detecting convergence at conservative Sites (CCS) and applied it to the genomic sequences of mangroves. In simulations, the CCS method drastically reduces random convergence at rapidly evolving sites as well as falsely inferred convergence caused by the misinferences of the ancestral character. In mangrove genomes, we estimated similar to 400 genes that have experienced convergence over the background level of convergence in the nonmangrove relatives. The convergent genes are enriched in pathways related to stress response and embryo development, which could be important for mangroves' adaptation to the new habitat.
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