1
|
Maldonado E, Rangel-Huerta E, Rodriguez-Salazar E, Pereida-Jaramillo E, Martínez-Torres A. Subterranean life: Behavior, metabolic, and some other adaptations of Astyanax cavefish. JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL ZOOLOGY PART B-MOLECULAR AND DEVELOPMENTAL EVOLUTION 2020; 334:463-473. [PMID: 32346998 DOI: 10.1002/jez.b.22948] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/14/2019] [Revised: 03/25/2020] [Accepted: 04/04/2020] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
Abstract
The ability of fishes to adapt to any aquatic environment seems limitless. It is enthralling how new species keep appearing at the deep sea or in subterranean environments. There are close to 230 known species of cavefishes, still today the best-known cavefish is Astyanax mexicanus, a Characid that has become a model organism, and has been studied and scrutinized since 1936. There are two morphotypes for A. mexicanus, a surface fish and a cavefish. The surface fish lives in central and northeastern Mexico and south of the United States, while the cavefish is endemic to the "Sierra del Abra-Tanchipa region" in northeast Mexico. The extensive genetic and genomic analysis depicts a complex origin for Astyanax cavefish, with multiple cave invasions and persistent gene flow among cave populations. The surface founder population prevails in the same region where the caves are. In this review, we focus on both morphotype's main morphological and physiological differences, but mainly in recent discoveries about behavioral and metabolic adaptations for subterranean life. These traits may not be as obvious as the troglomorphic characteristics, but are key to understand how Astyanax cavefish thrives in this environment of perpetual darkness.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Ernesto Maldonado
- EvoDevo Research Group, Unidad de Sistemas Arrecifales, Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo, México
| | - Emma Rangel-Huerta
- EvoDevo Research Group, Unidad de Sistemas Arrecifales, Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo, México
| | - Elizabeth Rodriguez-Salazar
- EvoDevo Research Group, Unidad de Sistemas Arrecifales, Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo, México
| | - Elizabeth Pereida-Jaramillo
- Laboratorio de Neurobiología Molecular y Celular, Departamento de Neurobiología Celular y Molecular, Instituto de Neurobiología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Santiago de Querétaro, México
| | - Ataulfo Martínez-Torres
- Laboratorio de Neurobiología Molecular y Celular, Departamento de Neurobiología Celular y Molecular, Instituto de Neurobiología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Santiago de Querétaro, México
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Hart PB, Niemiller ML, Burress ED, Armbruster JW, Ludt WB, Chakrabarty P. Cave-adapted evolution in the North American amblyopsid fishes inferred using phylogenomics and geometric morphometrics. Evolution 2020; 74:936-949. [PMID: 32187649 DOI: 10.1111/evo.13958] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/24/2019] [Revised: 02/23/2020] [Accepted: 02/27/2020] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Cave adaptation has evolved repeatedly across the Tree of Life, famously leading to pigmentation and eye degeneration and loss, yet its macroevolutionary implications remain poorly understood. We use the North American amblyopsid fishes, a family spanning a wide degree of cave adaptation, to examine the impact of cave specialization on the modes and tempo of evolution. We reconstruct evolutionary relationships using ultraconserved element loci, estimate the ancestral histories of eye-state, and examine the impact of cave adaptation on body shape evolution. Our phylogenomic analyses provide a well-supported hypothesis for amblyopsid evolutionary relationships. The obligate blind cavefishes form a clade and the cave-facultative eyed spring cavefishes are nested within the obligate cavefishes. Using ancestral state reconstruction, we find support for at least two independent subterranean colonization events within the Amblyopsidae. Eyed and blind fishes have different body shapes, but not different rates of body shape evolution. North American amblyopsids highlight the complex nature of cave-adaptive evolution and the necessity to include multiple lines of evidence to uncover the underlying processes involved in the loss of complex traits.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Pamela B Hart
- Museum of Natural Sciences and Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 70803
| | - Matthew L Niemiller
- Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama, 35899
| | - Edward D Burress
- Department of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis, California, 95616
| | - Jonathan W Armbruster
- Museum of Natural History and Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, 36830
| | - William B Ludt
- Department of Ichthyology, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, 9007
| | - Prosanta Chakrabarty
- Museum of Natural Sciences and Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 70803
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Márquez-Borrás F, Solís-Marín FA, Mejía-Ortiz LM. Troglomorphism in the brittle star Ophionereis commutabilis Bribiesca-Contreras et al., 2019 (Echinodermata, Ophiuroidea, Ophionereididae). SUBTERRANEAN BIOLOGY 2020. [DOI: 10.3897/subtbiol.33.48721] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Due to their peculiar and sometimes bizarre morphology, cave fauna (across invertebrates and vertebrates from both aquatic and terrestrial cave habitats) have fascinated researchers throughout history. Despite their success in colonizing most marine ecosystems, the adaptations of cave brittle stars (Ophiuroidea) to a stygobiotic lifestyle have been scarcely examined. Employing comparative methods on a data set of two species belonging to the genus Ophionereis, this study addresses whether a cave-dwelling species from Cozumel exhibited similar troglomorphic traits as those of other taxa inhabiting caves. Our work demonstrated that some characters representing potential morphological cave adaptations in O. commutabilis were: bigger sizes, elongation of arms and tube feet and the presence of traits potentially paedomorphic. In addition, an element of ophiuroid’s photoreceptor system, as well as pigmentation, was observed to be peculiar in this stygobiotic species, plausibly as a result of inhabiting a low light-energy environment. Finally, we add evidence to the statement that O. commutabilis is a cave endemic species, already supported by demography, distribution and origin of this species, and now by a typical array of troglomorphisms.
Collapse
|
4
|
Bribiesca-Contreras G, Pineda-Enríquez T, Márquez-Borrás F, Solís-Marín FA, Verbruggen H, Hugall AF, O'Hara TD. Dark offshoot: Phylogenomic data sheds light on the evolutionary history of a new species of cave brittle star. Mol Phylogenet Evol 2019; 136:151-163. [PMID: 30981811 DOI: 10.1016/j.ympev.2019.04.014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/09/2018] [Revised: 02/28/2019] [Accepted: 04/10/2019] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Caves are a useful system for testing evolutionary and biogeographic hypotheses, as they are isolated, and their environmental conditions have resulted in adaptive selection across different taxa. Although in recent years many more cave species have been discovered, cave-dwelling members of the class Ophiuroidea (brittle stars) remain scarce. Out of the more than two thousand species of brittle stars described to date, only three are regarded as true cave-dwellers. These occurrences represent rare colonising events, compared to other groups that are known to have successfully diversified in these systems. A third species from an anchihaline cave system in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, has been previously identified from cytochrome oxidase I (COI) barcodes. In this study, we reassess the species boundaries of this putative cave species using a phylogenomic dataset (20 specimens in 13 species, 100 exons, 18.7 kbp). We perform species delimitation analyses using robust full-coalescent methods for discovery and validation of hypotheses on species boundaries, as well as infer its phylogenetic relationships with species distributed in adjacent marine regions, in order to investigate the origin of this cave-adapted species. We assess which hypotheses on the origin of subterranean taxa can be applied to this species by taking into account its placement within the genus Ophionereis and its demographic history. We provide a detailed description of Ophionereis commutabilis n. sp., and evaluate its morphological characters in the light of its successful adaptation to life in caves.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Guadalupe Bribiesca-Contreras
- Museum Victoria, GPO Box 666, Melbourne 3001, Australia; School of Biosciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia.
| | - Tania Pineda-Enríquez
- Department of Biology, Division of Invertebrate Zoology, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA; Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90007, USA
| | - Francisco Márquez-Borrás
- Laboratorio de Sistemática y Ecología de Equinodermos, Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Circuito Universitario s/n, Ciudad de México CP 04510, Mexico; Posgrado en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Circuito Universitario s/n, Ciudad de México CP 04510, Mexico
| | - Francisco A Solís-Marín
- Laboratorio de Sistemática y Ecología de Equinodermos, Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Circuito Universitario s/n, Ciudad de México CP 04510, Mexico
| | - Heroen Verbruggen
- School of Biosciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia
| | | | | |
Collapse
|