Testing Convergent Evolution in Auditory Processing Genes between Echolocating Mammals and the Aye-Aye, a Percussive-Foraging Primate.

ABSTRACT: Several taxonomically distinct mammalian groups-certain microbats and cetaceans (e.g., dolphins)-share both morphological adaptations related to echolocation behavior and strong signatures of convergent evolution at the amino acid level across seven genes related to auditory processing. Aye-ayes (Daubentonia madagascariensis) are nocturnal lemurs with a specialized auditory processing system. Aye-ayes tap rapidly along the surfaces of trees, listening to reverberations to identify the mines of wood-boring insect larvae; this behavior has been hypothesized to functionally mimic echolocation. Here we investigated whether there are signals of convergence in auditory processing genes between aye-ayes and known mammalian echolocators. We developed a computational pipeline (Basic Exon Assembly T

SUBMITTER: Bankoff RJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5553384 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature