Month: September 2022

TOXICITY RESISTANCE. "We demonstrate that several lineages of insects, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals have utilized the same molecular solution, via the process of convergence, to evolve resistance to toxic cardiac glycosides produced defensively by plants and bufonid toads." https://lnkd.in/e8bgnWm View in LinkedIn

SIMPLEST RESISTANCE. "In toad-feeding reptiles, resistance is conferred by two point mutations that have evolved convergently on four occasions, whereas evidence of a molecular reversal back to the susceptible state in varanid lizards migrating to toad-free areas suggests that toxin resistance is maladaptive in the absence of selection." https://lnkd.in/e8bgnWm View in LinkedIn

TOXIC TOAD FEEDING REPTILES. "Importantly, resistance in all taxa is mediated by replacements of 2 of the 12 amino acids comprising the Na+/K+-ATPase H1–H2 extracellular domain that constitutes a core part of the cardiac glycoside binding site." Exquisite sensitivity. https://lnkd.in/e8bgnWm View in LinkedIn

BAT VISION. "Parallel and Convergent Evolution of the Dim-Light Vision Gene RH1 in Bats (Order: Chiroptera)." An impressive study of the rhodopsin gene in numerous bat clades, showing convergent evolution of this important visual molecule. https://lnkd.in/eEJwPzg View in LinkedIn

BAT ECHOLOCATION. "Divergent clades of echolocating bats seem to have undergone convergent amino acid replacements in several genes implicated in hearing. Furthermore, some candidate hearing genes also show parallel changes in echolocating bats and whales, again suggesting roles in high-frequency hearing." https://lnkd.in/epGtvrz View in LinkedIn

ECHOLOCATION. "Here we analyse genomic sequence data in mammals that have independently evolved echolocation and show that convergence is not a rare process restricted to several loci but is instead widespread, continuously distributed and commonly driven by natural selection acting on a small number of sites per locus." https://lnkd.in/epGtvrz View in LinkedIn

VISION AND ECHOLOCATION. "Our genome-wide analysis shows that natural selection has acted on three echolocating lineages (cetaceans and two separate bat lineages) to produce a complex pattern of changes in protein sequence, including both divergent and, more surprisingly, extensive convergent changes." https://lnkd.in/epGtvrz View in LinkedIn

SHIFT IN MODALITY. "Many of these changes are in genes that may be associated with the shift in primary sensory modality (between vision and echolocation), either directly or through the associated complex changes in ecology and natural history." https://lnkd.in/epGtvrz View in LinkedIn

"MARINE MAMMALS from different mammalian orders share several phenotypic traits adapted to the aquatic environment and therefore represent a classic example of convergent evolution. Our comparative genomic analyses found that convergent amino acid substitutions were widespread throughout the genome and that a subset of these substitutions were in genes evolving under positive selection and putatively associated with a marine phenotype." https://lnkd.in/eBMUXjN View in LinkedIn

PERVASIVE CONVERGENCE. "Systematic analyses of convergent sequence evolution in 805,053 amino acids within 2,326 orthologous coding gene sequences compared across 22 mammals (including four newly sequenced bat genomes) revealed signatures consistent with convergence in nearly 200 loci. This first attempt to detect genome-wide convergent sequence evolution across divergent taxa reveals the phenomenon to be much more pervasive than previously recognized." https://lnkd.in/epGtvrz View in LinkedIn