Evolution to environmental contamination ablates the circadian clock of an aquatic sentinel species.

ABSTRACT: Environmental contamination is a common cause of rapid evolution. Recent work has shown that Daphnia pulex, an important freshwater species, can rapidly evolve increased tolerance to a common contaminant, sodium chloride (NaCl) road salt. While such rapid evolution can benefit organisms, allowing them to adapt to new environmental conditions, it can also be associated with unforeseen tradeoffs. Given that exposure to environmental contaminants can cause circadian disruption, we investigated whether the circadian clock was affected by evolving a tolerance to high levels of road salt. By tracking the oscillations of a putative clock gene, period, we demonstrated that D. pulex express per mRNA with approximately 20-hr oscillations under control conditions. This put

SUBMITTER: Coldsnow KD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5723614 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature