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Population genomics of the killer whale indicates ecotype evolution in sympatry involving both selection and drift

Moura, A.E.; Kenny, J.G.; Chaudhuri, R.; Hughes, M.A.; Welch, A.J.; Reisinger, R.R.; de Bruyn, P.J.N.; Dahlheim, M.E.; Hall, N.; Hoelzel, A.R.

Population genomics of the killer whale indicates ecotype evolution in sympatry involving both selection and drift Thumbnail


Authors

A.E. Moura

J.G. Kenny

R. Chaudhuri

M.A. Hughes

R.R. Reisinger

P.J.N. de Bruyn

M.E. Dahlheim

N. Hall



Abstract

The evolution of diversity in the marine ecosystem is poorly understood, given the relatively high potential for connectivity, especially for highly mobile species such as whales and dolphins. The killer whale (Orcinus orca) has a worldwide distribution, and individual social groups travel over a wide geographic range. Even so, regional populations have been shown to be genetically differentiated, including among different foraging specialists (ecotypes) in sympatry. Given the strong matrifocal social structure of this species together with strong resource specializations, understanding the process of differentiation will require an understanding of the relative importance of both genetic drift and local adaptation. Here we provide a high-resolution analysis based on nuclear single-nucleotide polymorphic markers and inference about differentiation at both neutral loci and those potentially under selection. We find that all population comparisons, within or among foraging ecotypes, show significant differentiation, including populations in parapatry and sympatry. Loci putatively under selection show a different pattern of structure compared to neutral loci and are associated with gene ontology terms reflecting physiologically relevant functions (e.g. related to digestion). The pattern of differentiation for one ecotype in the North Pacific suggests local adaptation and shows some fixed differences among sympatric ecotypes. We suggest that differential habitat use and resource specializations have promoted sufficient isolation to allow differential evolution at neutral and functional loci, but that the process is recent and dependent on both selection and drift.

Citation

Moura, A., Kenny, J., Chaudhuri, R., Hughes, M., Welch, A., Reisinger, R., …Hoelzel, A. (2014). Population genomics of the killer whale indicates ecotype evolution in sympatry involving both selection and drift. Molecular Ecology, 23(21), 5179-5192. https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.12929

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Sep 15, 2014
Online Publication Date Oct 12, 2014
Publication Date Nov 1, 2014
Deposit Date Jan 13, 2014
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Molecular Ecology
Print ISSN 0962-1083
Electronic ISSN 1365-294X
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 23
Issue 21
Pages 5179-5192
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.12929
Keywords Adaptation, Cetacea, Ecological genetics, Population genomics, Sympatric divergence.

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2014 The Authors. Molecular Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.





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