Evidence of Late Pleistocene origin of Astyanax mexicanus cavefish

ABSTRACT: We found higher substitution rates in cavefish compared with surface fish, in accordance with a smaller cavefish population size which has allowed more rapid fixation of derived alleles present in the ancestral population. This result also implies that the Pachn cave population is much younger than previously estimated. The comparison of these data with simulations suggests that the Pachn cavefish population has probably been underground less than 30,000 years. This new time frame, together with other evidence, indicate that the evolution of cave phenotypes mainly involves the fixation of cryptic genetic variants present in surface fish populations within a short period of time.

INSTRUMENT(S): 454 GS FLX Titanium, Illumina HiSeq 1000

ORGANISM(S): Hyphessobrycon anisitsi

SUBMITTER: Didier Casane 

PROVIDER: E-MTAB-5142 | biostudies-arrayexpress |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-arrayexpress