Measurement of biological information with applications from genes to landscapes

The power to detect recent fragmentation events using genetic differentiation methods

Habitat loss and fragmentation are imminent threats to biological diversity worldwide and thus are fundamental issues in conservation biology. Increased isolation alone has been implicated as a driver of negative impacts in populations associated with fragmented landscapes. Genetic monitoring and the use of measures of genetic divergence have been proposed as means to detect changes in landscape connectivity. Our goal was to evaluate the sensitivity of Wright's F st, Hedrick' G'st , Sherwin's MI, and Jost's D to recent fragmentation events across a range of population sizes and sampling regimes. We constructed an individual-based model, which used a factorial design to compare effects of varying population size, presence or absence of overlapping generations, and presence or absence of population sub-structuring. Increases in population size, overlapping generations, and population sub-structuring each reduced F st, G'st , MI, and D. The signal of fragmentation was detected within two generations for all metrics. However, the magnitude of the change in each was small in all cases, and when N e was >100 individuals it was extremely small. Multi-generational sampling and population estimates are required to differentiate the signal of background divergence from changes in Fst , G'st , MI, and D associated with fragmentation. Finally, the window during which rapid change in Fst , G'st , MI, and D between generations occurs can be small, and if missed would lead to inconclusive results. For these reasons, use of F st, G'st , MI, or D for detecting and monitoring changes in connectivity is likely to prove difficult in real-world scenarios. We advocate use of genetic monitoring only in conjunction with estimates of actual movement among patches such that one could compare current movement with the genetic signature of past movement to determine there has been a change.

Evidence from genome-wide simple sequence repeat markers for a polyphyletic origin and secondary centers of genetic diversity of Brassica juncea in China and India

The oilseed Brassica juncea is an important crop with a long history of cultivation in India and China. Previous studies have suggested a polyphyletic origin of B. juncea and more than one migration from the primary to secondary centers of diversity. We investigated molecular genetic diversity based on 99 simple sequence repeat markers in 119 oilseed B. juncea varieties from China, India, Europe, and Australia to test whether molecular differentiation follows Vavilov's proposal of secondary centers of diversity in India and China. Two distinct groups were identified by markers in the A genome, and the same two groups were confirmed by markers in the B genome. Group 1 included accessions from central and western India, in addition to those from eastern China. Group 2 included accessions from central and western China, as well as those from northern and eastern India. European and Australian accessions were found only in Group 2. Chinese accessions had higher allelic diversity per accession (Group 1) and more private alleles per accession (Groups 1 and 2) than those from India. The marker data and geographic distribution of Groups 1 and 2 were consistent with two independent migrations of B. juncea from its center of origin in the Middle East and neighboring regions along trade routes to western China and northern India, followed by regional adaptation. Group 1 migrated further south and west in India, and further east in China, than Group 2. Group 2 showed diverse agroecological adaptation, with yellow-seeded spring-sown types in central and western China and brown-seeded autumn-sown types in India.

The genetic inheritance of the blue-eyed white phenotype in alpacas (Vicugna pacos)

White-spotting patterns in mammals can be caused by mutations in the gene KIT, whose protein is necessary for the normal migration and survival of melanocytes from the neural crest. The alpaca (Vicugna pacos) blue-eyed white (BEW) phenotype is characterized by 2 blue eyes and a solid white coat over the whole body. Breeders hypothesize that the BEW phenotype in alpacas is caused by the combination of the gene causing gray fleece and a white-spotting gene. We performed an association study using KIT flanking and intragenic markers with 40 unrelated alpacas, of which 17 were BEW. Two microsatellite alleles at KIT-related markers were significantly associated (P < 0.0001) with the BEW phenotype (bew1 and bew2). In a larger cohort of 171 related individuals, we identify an abundance of an allele (bew1) in gray animals and the occurrence of bew2 homozygotes that are solid white with pigmented eyes. Association tests accounting for population structure and familial relatedness are consistent with a proposed model where these alleles are in linkage disequilibrium with a mutation or mutations that contribute to the BEW phenotype and to individual differences in fleece color.

Microsatellite loci over a thirty-three year period for a malaria parasite (Plasmodium mexicanum): bottleneck in effective population size and effect on allele frequencies

Changes in population allele frequencies may be driven by several forces, including selection and drift, and are revealed only by sampling over many generations. Such studies, however, are rare for protist parasites. Microsatellite allele frequencies for 4 loci were followed in a population of Plasmodium mexicanum, a malaria parasite of lizards in California USA at 1 site from 1978 to 2010. Rapid turnover of the lizards indicates the parasite was studied for a minimum of 33 transmission cycles and possibly twice that number. Sample sizes ranged from 841 to 956 scored parasite clones per locus. DNA was extracted from frozen dried blood and blood removed from stained blood smears from the earliest years, and a verification study demonstrated DNA from the blood smears provided valid genetic data. Parasite prevalence and effective population size (Ne) dropped after 2000, remaining lower for the next decade. For 2 loci, allele frequencies appeared stable for the first 2 decades of the study, but changed more rapidly after the decline in prevalence. Allele frequencies changed more gradually for the other 2 loci. Genetic drift could account for changes in allele frequencies, especially after the drop in prevalence and Ne, but the force of selection could also have driven the observed patterns.

Pasture names with Romance and Slavic roots facilitate dissection of Y chromosome variation in an exclusively German-speaking alpine region

The small alpine district of East Tyrol (Austria) has an exceptional demographic history. It was contemporaneously inhabited by members of the Romance, the Slavic and the Germanic language groups for centuries. Since the Late Middle Ages, however, the population of the principally agrarian-oriented area is solely Germanic speaking. Historic facts about East Tyrol's colonization are rare, but spatial density-distribution analysis based on the etymology of place-names has facilitated accurate spatial mapping of the various language groups' former settlement regions. To test for present-day Y chromosome population substructure, molecular genetic data were compared to the information attained by the linguistic analysis of pasture names. The linguistic data were used for subdividing East Tyrol into two regions of former Romance (A) and Slavic (B) settlement. Samples from 270 East Tyrolean men were genotyped for 17 Y-chromosomal microsatellites (Y-STRs) and 27 single nucleotide polymorphisms (Y-SNPs). Analysis of the probands' surnames revealed no evidence for spatial genetic structuring. Also, spatial autocorrelation analysis did not indicate significant correlation between genetic (Y-STR haplotypes) and geographic distance. Haplogroup R-M17 chromosomes, however, were absent in region A, but constituted one of the most frequent haplogroups in region B. The R-M343 (R1b) clade showed a marked and complementary frequency distribution pattern in these two regions. To further test East Tyrol's modern Y-chromosomal landscape for geographic patterning attributable to the early history of settlement in this alpine area, principal coordinates analysis was performed. The Y-STR haplotypes from region A clearly clustered with those of Romance reference populations and the samples from region B matched best with Germanic speaking reference populations. The combined use of onomastic and molecular genetic data revealed and mapped the marked structuring of the distribution of Y chromosomes in an alpine region that has been culturally homogeneous for centuries.

GenAlEx 6.5: genetic analysis in Excel. Population genetic software for teaching and research--an update

Summary: GenAlEx: Genetic Analysis in Excel is a cross-platform package for population genetic analyses that runs within Microsoft Excel. GenAlEx offers analysis of diploid codominant, haploid and binary genetic loci and DNA sequences. Both frequency-based (F-statistics, heterozygosity, HWE, population assignment, relatedness) and distance-based (AMOVA, PCoA, Mantel tests, multivariate spatial autocorrelation) analyses are provided. New features include calculation of new estimators of population structure: G′_ST, G′′_ST, Jost’s D_est and F′_ST through AMOVA, Shannon Information analysis, linkage disequilibrium analysis for biallelic data and novel heterogeneity tests for spatial autocorrelation analysis. Export to more than 30 other data formats is provided. Teaching tutorials and expanded step-by-step output options are included. The comprehensive guide has been fully revised.

Availability and implementation: GenAlEx is written in VBA and provided as a Microsoft Excel Add-in (compatible with Excel 2003, 2007, 2010 on PC; Excel 2004, 2011 on Macintosh). GenAlEx, and supporting documentation and tutorials are freely available at: http://biology.anu.edu.au/GenAlEx.

Contact:rod.peakall@anu.edu.au

High genetic diversity in a remote island population system: sans sex

It has been proposed that long-distance dispersal of mosses to the Hawaiian Islands rarely occurs and that the Hawaiian population of the allopolyploid peat moss Sphagnum palustre probably resulted from a single dispersal event. Here, we used microsatellites to investigate whether the Hawaiian population of the dioicous S. palustre had a single founder and to compare its genetic diversity to that found in populations of S. palustre in other regions. The genetic diversity of the Hawaiian population is comparable to that of larger population systems. Several lines of evidence, including a lack of sporophytes and an apparently restricted natural distribution, suggest that sexual reproduction is absent in the Hawaiian plants. In addition, all samples of Hawaiian S. palustre share a genetic trait rare in other populations. Time to most recent ancestor (TMRCA) analysis indicates that the Hawaiian population was probably founded 49-51 kyr ago. It appears that all Hawaiian plants of S. palustre descend from a single founder via vegetative propagation. The long-term viability of this clonal population coupled with the development of significant genetic diversity suggests that vegetative propagation in a moss does not necessarily preclude evolutionary success in the long term.

Genetic diversity of tufted ducks (Aythya fuligula, Anatidae) in Eastern Europe

The tufted duck (Aythya fuligula, Anatidae) is widespread in the Palaearctic across Northern Eurasia. Birds breeding in Northern and Eastern Europe are highly migratory, while populations from Western Europe are partially migratory or resident. The aim of this study is to explore genetic variation within and between ducks breeding in Latvia and migrants sampled in North West Russia and Belarus. The technique of random amplified polymorphic DNA was applied using five random primers (ol-1, ol-9-12). Genetic variability was measured for all tufted ducks investigated and for different sub-populations from various regions. Individual genetic structure and genetic variability was higher in ducks collected from Latvia. Gene diversity of amplified DNA bands in birds of Latvian origin was 24% with 80% polymorphism. Means of gene diversity and polymorphism for tufted ducks sampled in other countries varied from 12 to 14% and from 27 to 40%, respectively. A high number of unique bands characterized ducks breeding in Latvia. The oligonucleotide primers used in this study were suitable to analyze differences among tufted ducks of different origin. Possible explanations for the variation observed among the studied ducks are discussed.

Genetic diversity and species diversity of stream fishes covary across a land-use gradient

Genetic diversity and species diversity are expected to covary according to area and isolation, but may not always covary with environmental heterogeneity. In this study, we examined how patterns of genetic and species diversity in stream fishes correspond to local and regional environmental conditions. To do so, we compared population size, genetic diversity and divergence in central stonerollers (Campostoma anomalum) to measures of species diversity and turnover in stream fish assemblages among similarly sized watersheds across an agriculture-forest land-use gradient in the Little Miami River basin (Ohio, USA). Significant correlations were found in many, but not all, pair-wise comparisons. Allelic richness and species richness were strongly correlated, for example, but diversity measures based on allele frequencies and assemblage structure were not. In-stream conditions related to agricultural land use were identified as significant predictors of genetic diversity and species diversity. Comparisons to population size indicate, however, that genetic diversity and species diversity are not necessarily independent and that variation also corresponds to watershed location and glaciation history in the drainage basin. Our findings demonstrate that genetic diversity and species diversity can covary in stream fish assemblages, and illustrate the potential importance of scaling observations to capture responses to hierarchical environmental variation. More comparisons according to life history variation could further improve understanding of conditions that give rise to parallel variation in genetic diversity and species diversity, which in turn could improve diagnosis of anthropogenic influences on aquatic ecosystems.

The impact of distance and a shifting temperature gradient on genetic connectivity across a heterogeneous landscape

Background

Inter-population distance and differences in breeding times are barriers to reproduction that can contribute to genotypic differentiation between populations. Temporal changes in environmental conditions and local selective processes can further contribute to the establishment of reproductive barriers. Telopea speciosissima (Proteaceae) is an excellent subject for studying the effect of geographic, edaphic and phenological heterogeneity on genotypic differentiation because previous studies show that these factors are correlated with morphological variation. Molecular, morphological and environmental datasets were combined to characterise the relative influence of these factors on inter-population differentiation, and Bayesian analyses were used to investigate current levels of admixture between differentiated genomes.

Results

A landscape genetic approach involving molecular and morphological analyses identified three endpoints of differentiated population groups: coastal, upland and southern. The southern populations, isolated from the other populations by an edaphic barrier, show low migration and no evidence of admixture with other populations. Amongst the northern populations, coastal and upland populations are connected along a skewed altitudinal gradient by genetically intermediate populations. The strong association between temperature and flowering time in Telopea speciosissima was shown to maintain a temporally unstable reproductive barrier between coastal and upland populations.

Conclusions

Substrate-mediated allopatry appears to be responsible for long-term genetic isolation of the southern populations. However, the temperature-dependent reproductive barrier between upland and coastal populations bears the genetic signature of temporal adjustments. The extreme climatic events of the last glacial maximum are likely to have caused more complete allochronic isolation between upland and coastal populations, as well as exerting increased selective pressure upon local genomes. However, at intermediate altitudes, current climatic conditions allow for the incorporation of alleles from previously distinct genomes, generating new, intermediate genomic assemblages and possibly increasing overall adaptive potential.

MTML-msBayes: approximate Bayesian comparative phylogeographic inference from multiple taxa and multiple loci with rate heterogeneity

Background

MTML-msBayes uses hierarchical approximate Bayesian computation (HABC) under a coalescent model to infer temporal patterns of divergence and gene flow across codistributed taxon-pairs. Under a model of multiple codistributed taxa that diverge into taxon-pairs with subsequent gene flow or isolation, one can estimate hyper-parameters that quantify the mean and variability in divergence times or test models of migration and isolation. The software uses multi-locus DNA sequence data collected from multiple taxon-pairs and allows variation across taxa in demographic parameters as well as heterogeneity in DNA mutation rates across loci. The method also allows a flexible sampling scheme: different numbers of loci of varying length can be sampled from different taxon-pairs.

Results

Simulation tests reveal increasing power with increasing numbers of loci when attempting to distinguish temporal congruence from incongruence in divergence times across taxon-pairs. These results are robust to DNA mutation rate heterogeneity. Estimating mean divergence times and testing simultaneous divergence was less accurate with migration, but improved if one specified the correct migration model. Simulation validation tests demonstrated that one can detect the correct migration or isolation model with high probability, and that this HABC model testing procedure was greatly improved by incorporating a summary statistic originally developed for this task (Wakeley's Ψ_W). The method is applied to an empirical data set of three Australian avian taxon-pairs and a result of simultaneous divergence with some subsequent gene flow is inferred.

Conclusions

To retain flexibility and compatibility with existing bioinformatics tools, MTML-msBayes is a pipeline software package consisting of Perl, C and R programs that are executed via the command line. Source code and binaries are available for download at http://msbayes.sourceforge.net/ under an open source license (GNU Public License).

Quantifying biodiversity and asymptotics for a sequence of random strings

We present a methodology for quantifying biodiversity at the sequence level by developing the probability theory on a set of strings. Further, we apply our methodology to the problem of quantifying the population diversity of microorganisms in several extreme environments and digestive organs and reveal the relation between microbial diversity and various environmental parameters.

Dispersal limitations, rather than bottlenecks or habitat specificity, can restrict the distribution of rare and endemic rainforest trees

Despite their narrow distribution, Australian rainforests still contain considerable levels of diversity and include many ancient, but often rare, lineages. Very little is known about the general biology of rainforest species, yet their long-term management depends on a better understanding of the main factors leading to rarity. For instance, are they highly endemic taxa, at the early stages of expansion, nearing the end of a period of decline, or persisting at low numbers over the long term? In this study we combine molecular, environmental, and ecological data to identify the factors responsible for the narrow distribution of a paleoendemic rainforest tree: Elaeocarpus sedentarius (Elaeocarpaceae). Between-population and between-generation comparisons of genetic diversity across all known populations of E. sedentarius show evidence of mutation-drift equilibrium rather than evidence of a recent bottleneck. Similarly, floristic and environmental data negate the hypothesis of rarity as a consequence of highly specialized habitat requirements. Instead, genetic structure and the available ecological data support the hypothesis of dispersal limitation as the main cause of endemism and that the species may have attained genetic equilibrium without realizing its full niche potential. We suggest that these factors are likely to explain narrow endemism in a broader range of taxa.

Entropy as a measure of diversity in an inventory of medical devices

Quantitative techniques for the measurement of species diversity have been developed in ecological studies. One such technique, based on an entropy measurement, has been applied to the assessment of medical device diversity in large inventories of medical equipment. Using this technique it is possible to identify trends which are not apparent from simple considerations of the total number of devices, or the number of device types. Objective measurements of this type can be used to monitor the progress of planned equipment replacement programmes.