TY - JOUR

T1 - Color phenotypes are under similar genetic control in two distantly related species of Timema stick insect

AU - Comeault, Aaron A

AU - Carvalho, Clarissa F

AU - Dennis, Stuart

AU - Soria-Carrasco, Víctor

AU - Nosil, Patrik

N1 - © 2016 The Author(s). Evolution © 2016 The Society for the Study of Evolution.

PY - 2016/6/21

Y1 - 2016/6/21

N2 - Ecology and genetics are both of general interest to evolutionary biologists as they can influence the phenotypic and genetic response to selection. The stick insects Timema podura and Timema cristinae exhibit a green/melanistic body color polymorphism that is subject to different ecologically based selective regimes in the two species. Here, we describe aspects of the genetics of this color polymorphism in T. podura, and compare this to previous results in T. cristinae. We first show that similar color phenotypes of the two species cluster in phenotypic space. We then use genome-wide association mapping to show that in both species, color is controlled by few loci, dominance relationships between color alleles are the same, and SNPs associated with color phenotypes colocalize to the same linkage group. Regions within this linkage group that harbor genetic variants associated with color exhibit elevated linkage disequilibrium relative to genome wide expectations, but more strongly so in T. cristinae. We use these results to discuss predictions regarding how the genetics of color could influence levels of phenotypic and genetic variation that segregate within and between populations of T. podura and T. cristinae, drawing parallels with other organisms.

AB - Ecology and genetics are both of general interest to evolutionary biologists as they can influence the phenotypic and genetic response to selection. The stick insects Timema podura and Timema cristinae exhibit a green/melanistic body color polymorphism that is subject to different ecologically based selective regimes in the two species. Here, we describe aspects of the genetics of this color polymorphism in T. podura, and compare this to previous results in T. cristinae. We first show that similar color phenotypes of the two species cluster in phenotypic space. We then use genome-wide association mapping to show that in both species, color is controlled by few loci, dominance relationships between color alleles are the same, and SNPs associated with color phenotypes colocalize to the same linkage group. Regions within this linkage group that harbor genetic variants associated with color exhibit elevated linkage disequilibrium relative to genome wide expectations, but more strongly so in T. cristinae. We use these results to discuss predictions regarding how the genetics of color could influence levels of phenotypic and genetic variation that segregate within and between populations of T. podura and T. cristinae, drawing parallels with other organisms.

KW - Animals

KW - Biological Evolution

KW - Color

KW - Genome-Wide Association Study

KW - Insecta/genetics

KW - Phenotype

KW - Pigmentation

KW - Polymorphism, Genetic

U2 - 10.1111/evo.12931

DO - 10.1111/evo.12931

M3 - Article

C2 - 27130287

VL - 70

SP - 1283

EP - 1296

JO - Evolution

JF - Evolution

SN - 0014-3820

IS - 6

ER -