Integrating evolutionary and functional tests of adaptive hypotheses: a case study of altitudinal differentiation in hemoglobin function in an Andean Sparrow, Zonotrichia capensis.

ABSTRACT: In air-breathing vertebrates, the physiologically optimal blood-O2 affinity is jointly determined by the prevailing partial pressure of atmospheric O2, the efficacy of pulmonary O2 transfer, and internal metabolic demands. Consequently, genetic variation in the oxygenation properties of hemoglobin (Hb) may be subject to spatially varying selection in species with broad elevational distributions. Here we report the results of a combined functional and evolutionary analysis of Hb polymorphism in the rufous-collared sparrow (Zonotrichia capensis), a species that is continuously distributed across a steep elevational gradient on the Pacific slope of the Peruvian Andes. We integrated a population genomic analysis that included all postnatally expressed Hb genes with functional studies of natura

SUBMITTER: Cheviron ZA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4209134 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature