Cost of Tolerance: Physiological Consequences of Evolved Resistance to Inhabit a Polluted Environment in Teleost Fish Fundulus heteroclitus.

ABSTRACT: Anthropogenic stressors, including pollutants, are key evolutionary drivers. It is hypothesized that rapid evolution to anthropogenic changes may alter fundamental physiological processes (e.g., energy metabolism), compromising an organism's capacity to respond to additional stressors. The Elizabeth River (ER) Superfund site represents a "natural-experiment" to explore this hypothesis in several subpopulations of Atlantic killifish that have evolved a gradation of resistance to a ubiquitous pollutant-polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). We examined bioenergetic shifts and associated consequences in PAH-resistant killifish by integrating genomic, physiological, and modeling approaches. Population genomics data revealed that genomic regions encoding bioenergetic processes are under select

SUBMITTER: Jayasundara N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5745795 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature