engleski

Experimental genomic tests for pollution driven rapid evolution in the Mediterranean mussel

Anthropogenic disturbance can rapidly and substantially alter the environment such that exposed organisms are challenged to quickly adapt to these changes. We studied evolutionary responses to pollution in marine environments using the Mediterranean mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis. We sampled 15 natural populations along a pollution gradient and used a subset of these to perform transplant experiments between clean and polluted environments in both the wild and in lab mesocosms. The results of the experiments showed consistent differential survival between treatments and source populations driven by an acclimatization effect in the wild transplant and by population by environment interactions in the mesocosm experiment. For over 1800 mussels used in these studies we collected genome wide SNP data using a genotype-by-sequencing approach. These SNPs were analysed to test for genetic structure in natural populations and the genomic architecture of survival (i.e., fitness) in the experiments. By combining data obtained from the native populations and two types of transplant experiments we identified interactions between environment, genotype, and fitness, thus providing new insight into pollution driven evolution and the effect of adaptive processes on the mussel genome.

rapid evolution; Mytilus galloprovincialis; genomic architecture; environment; fitness

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