From tides to nucleotides: Genomic signatures of adaptation to environmental heterogeneity in barnacles.

ABSTRACT: The northern acorn barnacle (Semibalanus balanoides) is a robust system to study the genetic basis of adaptations to highly heterogeneous environments. Adult barnacles may be exposed to highly dissimilar levels of thermal stress depending on where they settle in the intertidal (i.e., closer to the upper or lower tidal boundary). For instance, barnacles near the upper tidal limit experience episodic summer temperatures above recorded heat coma levels. This differential stress at the microhabitat level is also dependent on the aspect of sun exposure. In the present study, we used pool-seq approaches to conduct a genome wide screen for loci responding to intertidal zonation across the North Atlantic basin (Maine, Rhode Island, and Norway). Our analysis discovered 382 genomic regions containin

SUBMITTER: Nunez JCB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9292448 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature