Genomic basis of ecological niche divergence among cryptic sister species of non-biting midges.

ABSTRACT:

Background

There is a lack of understanding the evolutionary forces driving niche segregation of closely related organisms. In addition, pinpointing the genes driving ecological divergence is a key goal in molecular ecology. Here, larval transcriptome sequences obtained by next-generation-sequencing are used to address these issues in a morphologically cryptic sister species pair of non-biting midges (Chironomus riparius and C. piger).

Results

More than eight thousand orthologous open reading frames were screened for interspecific divergence and intraspecific polymorphisms. Despite a small mean sequence divergence of 1.53% between the sister species, 25.1% of 18,115 observed amino acid substitutions were inferred by α statistics to be driven by positive selection. Applying M

SUBMITTER: Schmidt H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3685581 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature