Diversification and the rate of molecular evolution: no evidence of a link in mammals

Investigating the reliability of molecular estimates of evolutionary time when substitution rates and speciation rates vary

Background

An accurate timescale of evolutionary history is essential to testing hypotheses about the influence of historical events and processes, and the timescale for evolution is increasingly derived from analysis of DNA sequences. But variation in the rate of molecular evolution complicates the inference of time from DNA. Evidence is growing for numerous factors, such as life history and habitat, that are linked both to the molecular processes of mutation and fixation and to rates of macroevolutionary diversification. However, the most widely used methods rely on idealised models of rate variation, such as the uncorrelated and autocorrelated clocks, and molecular dating methods are rarely tested against complex models of rate change. One relationship that is not accounted for in molecular dating is the potential for interaction between molecular substitution rates and speciation, a relationship that has been supported by empirical studies in a growing number of taxa. If these relationships are as widespread as current evidence suggests, they may have a significant influence on molecular dates.

Results

We simulate phylogenies and molecular sequences under three different realistic rate variation models—one in which speciation rates and substitution rates both vary but are unlinked, one in which they covary continuously and one punctuated model in which molecular change is concentrated in speciation events, using empirical case studies to parameterise realistic simulations. We test three commonly used “relaxed clock” molecular dating methods against these realistic simulations to explore the degree of error in molecular dates under each model. We find average divergence time inference errors ranging from 12% of node age for the unlinked model when reconstructed under an uncorrelated rate prior using BEAST 2, to up to 91% when sequences evolved under the punctuated model are reconstructed under an autocorrelated prior using PAML.

Conclusions

We demonstrate the potential for substantial errors in molecular dates when both speciation rates and substitution rates vary between lineages. This study highlights the need for tests of molecular dating methods against realistic models of rate variation generated from empirical parameters and known relationships.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12862-022-02015-8.

Adaptations and Diversity of Antarctic Fishes: A Genomic Perspective

Antarctic notothenioid fishes are the classic example of vertebrate adaptive radiation in a marine environment. Notothenioids diversified from a single common ancestor ∼25 Mya to more than 140 species today, and they represent ∼90% of fish biomass on the continental shelf of Antarctica. As they diversified in the cold Southern Ocean, notothenioids evolved numerous traits, including osteopenia, anemia, cardiomegaly, dyslipidemia, and aglomerular kidneys, that are beneficial or tolerated in their environment but are pathological in humans. Thus, notothenioids are models for understanding adaptive radiations, physiological and biochemical adaptations to extreme environments, and genetic mechanisms of human disease. Since 2014, 16 notothenioid genomes have been published, which enable a first-pass holistic analysis of the notothenioid radiation and the genetic underpinnings of novel notothenioid traits. Here, we review the notothenioid radiation from a genomic perspective and integrate our insights with recent observations from other fish radiations. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Animal Biosciences, Volume 10 is February 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Nucleotide substitutions during speciation may explain substitution rate variation

Although molecular mechanisms associated with the generation of mutations are highly conserved across taxa, there is widespread variation in mutation rates between evolutionary lineages. When phylogenies are reconstructed based on nucleotide sequences, such variation is typically accounted for by the assumption of a relaxed molecular clock, which is a statistical distribution of mutation rates without much underlying biological mechanism. Here, we propose that variation in accumulated mutations may be partly explained by an elevated mutation rate during speciation. Using simulations, we show how shifting mutations from branches to speciation events impacts inference of branching times in phylogenetic reconstruction. Furthermore, the resulting nucleotide alignments are better described by a relaxed than by a strict molecular clock. Thus, elevated mutation rates during speciation potentially explain part of the variation in substitution rates that is observed across the tree of life. [Molecular clock; phylogenetic reconstruction; speciation; substitution rate variation.]

Deep time diversity and the early radiations of birds

Reconstructing the history of biodiversity has been hindered by often-separate analyses of stem and crown groups of the clades in question that are not easily understood within the same unified evolutionary framework. Here, we investigate the evolutionary history of birds by analyzing three supertrees that combine published phylogenies of both stem and crown birds. Our analyses reveal three distinct large-scale increases in the diversification rate across bird evolutionary history. The first increase, which began between 160 and 170 Ma and reached its peak between 130 and 135 Ma, corresponds to an accelerated morphological evolutionary rate associated with the locomotory systems among early stem birds. This radiation resulted in morphospace occupation that is larger and different from their close dinosaurian relatives, demonstrating the occurrence of a radiation among early stem birds. The second increase, which started ∼90 Ma and reached its peak between 65 and 55 Ma, is associated with rapid evolution of the cranial skeleton among early crown birds, driven differently from the first radiation. The third increase, which occurred after ∼40 to 45 Ma, has yet to be supported by quantitative morphological data but gains some support from the fossil record. Our analyses indicate that the bird biodiversity evolution was influenced mainly by long-term climatic changes and also by major paleobiological events such as the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction.

Macroevolutionary dynamics of parasite diversification: A reality check

Parasitism is often invoked as a factor explaining the variation in diversification rates across the tree of life, while also representing up to half of Earth's diversity. Yet, patterns and processes of parasite diversification remain mostly unknown. In this study, we assess the patterns of parasite diversification and specifically determine the role of life-history traits (i.e. life cycle complexity and host range) and major coevolutionary events in driving diversification across eight phylogenetic datasets spanning taxonomically different parasite groups. Aware of the degree of incomplete sampling among all parasite phylogenies, we also tested the impact of sampling bias on estimates of diversification. We show that the patterns and rates of parasite diversification differ among taxa according to life cycle complexity and to some extent major host transitions. Only directly transmitted parasites were found to be influenced by an effect of major host transitions on diversification rates. Although parasitism may be a main factor responsible for heterogeneity in diversification among the tree of life, the high degree of incomplete parasite phylogenies remains an obstacle when modelling diversification dynamics. Nevertheless, we provide the first comparative test of parasite diversification, revealing some consistent patterns and insight into the processes that shape it.

Evolutionary Rates of Bumblebee Genomes Are Faster at Lower Elevations

The importance of climate in determining biodiversity patterns has been well documented. However, the relationship between climate and rates of genetic evolution remains controversial. Latitude and elevation have been associated with rates of change in genetic markers such as cytochrome b. What is not known, however, is the strength of such associations and whether patterns found among these genes apply across entire genomes. Here, using bumblebee genetic data from seven subgenera of Bombus, we demonstrate that all species occupying warmer elevations have undergone faster genome-wide evolution than those in the same subgenera occupying cooler elevations. Our findings point to a critical biogeographic role in the relative rates of whole species evolution, potentially influencing global biodiversity patterns.

Evolution: Dampening the Cambrian Explosion

The Cambrian explosion is widely seen as evolution's 'big bang', generating a vast diversity of animals in a geological blink of an eye. Two new studies, however, caution against overestimating its magnitude.

Mammal diversity will take millions of years to recover from the current biodiversity crisis

The incipient sixth mass extinction that started in the Late Pleistocene has already erased over 300 mammal species and, with them, more than 2.5 billion y of unique evolutionary history. At the global scale, this lost phylogenetic diversity (PD) can only be restored with time as lineages evolve and create new evolutionary history. Given the increasing rate of extinctions however, can mammals evolve fast enough to recover their lost PD on a human time scale? We use a birth-death tree framework to show that even if extinction rates slow to preanthropogenic background levels, recovery of lost PD will likely take millions of years. These findings emphasize the severity of the potential sixth mass extinction and the need to avoid the loss of unique evolutionary history now.

History is written by the victors: The effect of the push of the past on the fossil record

Survivorship biases can generate remarkable apparent rate heterogeneities through time in otherwise homogeneous birth‐death models of phylogenies. They are a potential explanation for many striking patterns seen in the fossil record and molecular phylogenies. One such bias is the “push of the past”: clades that survived a substantial length of time are likely to have experienced a high rate of early diversification. This creates the illusion of a secular rate slow‐down through time that is, rather, a reversion to the mean. An extra effect increasing early rates of lineage generation is also seen in large clades. These biases are important but relatively neglected influences on many aspects of diversification patterns in the fossil record and elsewhere, such as diversification spikes after mass extinctions and at the origins of clades; they also influence rates of fossilization, changes in rates of phenotypic evolution and even molecular clocks. These inevitable features of surviving and/or large clades should thus not be generalized to the diversification process as a whole without additional study of small and extinct clades, and raise questions about many of the traditional explanations of the patterns seen in the fossil record.

Phylogenetic estimates of diversification rate are affected by molecular rate variation

Molecular phylogenies are increasingly being used to investigate the patterns and mechanisms of macroevolution. In particular, node heights in a phylogeny can be used to detect changes in rates of diversification over time. Such analyses rest on the assumption that node heights in a phylogeny represent the timing of diversification events, which in turn rests on the assumption that evolutionary time can be accurately predicted from DNA sequence divergence. But there are many influences on the rate of molecular evolution, which might also influence node heights in molecular phylogenies, and thus affect estimates of diversification rate. In particular, a growing number of studies have revealed an association between the net diversification rate estimated from phylogenies and the rate of molecular evolution. Such an association might, by influencing the relative position of node heights, systematically bias estimates of diversification time. We simulated the evolution of DNA sequences under several scenarios where rates of diversification and molecular evolution vary through time, including models where diversification and molecular evolutionary rates are linked. We show that commonly used methods, including metric-based, likelihood and Bayesian approaches, can have a low power to identify changes in diversification rate when molecular substitution rates vary. Furthermore, the association between the rates of speciation and molecular evolution rate can cause the signature of a slowdown or speedup in speciation rates to be lost or misidentified. These results suggest that the multiple sources of variation in molecular evolutionary rates need to be considered when inferring macroevolutionary processes from phylogenies.

Correlated evolutionary rates across genomic compartments in Annonaceae

The molecular clock hypothesis is an important concept in biology. Deviations from a constant rate of nucleotide substitution have been found widely among lineages, genomes, genes and individual sites. Phylogenetic research can accommodate for these differences in applying specific models of evolution. Lineage-specific rate heterogeneity however can generate bi- or multimodal distributions of substitution rates across the branches of a tree and this may mislead phylogenetic inferences with currently available models. The plant family Annonaceae is an excellent case to study lineage-specific rate heterogeneity. The two major sister subfamilies, Annonoideae and Malmeoideae, have shown great discrepancies in branch lengths. We used high-throughput sequencing data of 72 genes, 99 spacers and 16 introns from 24 chloroplast genomes and nuclear ribosomal DNA of 23 species to study the molecular rate of evolution in Annonaceae. In all analyses, longer branch lengths and/or higher substitution rates were found for the Annonoideae compared to the Malmeoideae. The Annonaceae had wide variability in chloroplast length, ranging from minimal 175,684bp to 201,723 for Annonoideae and minimal 152,357 to 170,985bp in Malmeoideae, mostly reflecting variation in inverted-repeat length. The Annonoideae showed a higher GC-content in the conserved parts of the chloroplast genome and higher omega (d_N/d_S)-ratios than the Malmeoideae, which could indicate less stringent purifying selection, a pattern that has been found in groups with small population sizes. This study generates new insights into the processes causing lineage-specific rate heterogeneity, which could lead to improved phylogenetic methods.

Integration of mtDNA pseudogenes into the nuclear genome coincides with speciation of the human genus. A hypothesis

Fragments of mitochondrial DNA are known to get inserted into nuclear DNA to form NUMTs, i.e. nuclear pseudogenes of the mtDNA. The insertion of a NUMT is a rare event. Hundreds of pseudogenes have been cataloged in the human genome. NUMTs are, in essence, a special type of mutation with their own internal timer, which is synchronized with an established molecular clock, the mtDNA. Thus insertion of NUMTs can be timed with respect to evolution milestones such as the emergence of new species. We asked whether NUMTs were inserted uniformly over time or preferentially during certain periods of evolution, as implied by the "punctuated evolution" model. To our surprise, the NUMT insertion times do appear nonrandom with at least one cluster positioned at around 2.8 million years ago (Ma). Interestingly, 2.8Ma closely corresponds to the time of emergence of the genus Homo, and to a well-documented period of major climate change ca. 2.9-2.5Ma. It is tempting to hypothesize that the insertion of NUMTs is related to the speciation process. NUMTs could be either "riders", i.e., their insertion could be facilitated by the overall higher genome rearrangement activity during speciation, or "drivers", i.e. they may more readily get fixed in the population due to positive selection associated with speciation. If correct, the hypothesis would support the idea that evolution of our genus may have happened in a rapid, punctuated manner.

Kr/Kc but not dN/dS correlates positively with body mass in birds, raising implications for inferring lineage-specific selection

Background

The ratio of the rates of non-synonymous and synonymous substitution (d_N/d_S) is commonly used to estimate selection in coding sequences. It is often suggested that, all else being equal, d_N/d_S should be lower in populations with large effective size (N_e) due to increased efficacy of purifying selection. As N_e is difficult to measure directly, life history traits such as body mass, which is typically negatively associated with population size, have commonly been used as proxies in empirical tests of this hypothesis. However, evidence of whether the expected positive correlation between body mass and d_N/d_S is consistently observed is conflicting.

Results

Employing whole genome sequence data from 48 avian species, we assess the relationship between rates of molecular evolution and life history in birds. We find a negative correlation between d_N/d_S and body mass, contrary to nearly neutral expectation. This raises the question whether the correlation might be a method artefact. We therefore in turn consider non-stationary base composition, divergence time and saturation as possible explanations, but find no clear patterns. However, in striking contrast to d_N/d_S, the ratio of radical to conservative amino acid substitutions (K_r/K_c) correlates positively with body mass.

Conclusions

Our results in principle accord with the notion that non-synonymous substitutions causing radical amino acid changes are more efficiently removed by selection in large populations, consistent with nearly neutral theory. These findings have implications for the use of d_N/d_S and suggest that caution is warranted when drawing conclusions about lineage-specific modes of protein evolution using this metric.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13059-014-0542-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Exploring the Relationships between Mutation Rates, Life History, Genome Size, Environment, and Species Richness in Flowering Plants

A new view is emerging of the interplay between mutation at the genomic level, substitution at the population level, and diversification at the lineage level. Many studies have suggested that rate of molecular evolution is linked to rate of diversification, but few have evaluated competing hypotheses. By analyzing sequences from 130 families of angiosperms, we show that variation in the synonymous substitution rate is correlated among genes from the mitochondrial, chloroplast, and nuclear genomes and linked to differences in traits among families (average height and genome size). Within each genome, synonymous rates are correlated to nonsynonymous substitution rates, suggesting that increasing the mutation rate results in a faster rate of genome evolution. Substitution rates are correlated with species richness in protein-coding sequences from the chloroplast and nuclear genomes. These data suggest that species traits contribute to lineage-specific differences in the mutation rate that drive both synonymous and nonsynonymous rates of change across all three genomes, which in turn contribute to greater rates of divergence between populations, generating higher rates of diversification. These observations link mutation in individuals to population-level processes and to patterns of lineage divergence.

Historical factors that have shaped the evolution of tropical reef fishes: a review of phylogenies, biogeography, and remaining questions

Biodiversity patterns across the marine tropics have intrigued evolutionary biologists and ecologists alike. Tropical coral reefs host 1/3 of all marine species of fish on 0.1% of the ocean's surface. Yet our understanding of how mechanistic processes have underpinned the generation of this diversity is limited. However, it has become clear that the biogeographic history of the marine tropics has played an important role in shaping the diversity of tropical reef fishes we see today. In the last decade, molecular phylogenies and age estimation techniques have provided a temporal framework in which the ancestral biogeographic origins of reef fish lineages have been inferred, but few have included fully sampled phylogenies or made inferences at a global scale. We are currently at a point where new sequencing technologies are accelerating the reconstruction and the resolution of the Fish Tree of Life. How will a complete phylogeny of fishes benefit the study of biodiversity in the tropics? Here, I review the literature concerning the evolutionary history of reef-associated fishes from a biogeographic perspective. I summarize the major biogeographic and climatic events over the last 65 million years that have regionalized the tropical marine belt and what effect they have had on the molecular record of fishes and global biodiversity patterns. By examining recent phylogenetic trees of major reef associated groups, I identify gaps to be filled in order to obtain a clearer picture of the origins of coral reef fish assemblages. Finally, I discuss questions that remain to be answered and new approaches to uncover the mechanistic processes that underpin the evolution of biodiversity on coral reefs.

Two new fern chloroplasts and decelerated evolution linked to the long generation time in tree ferns

We report the chloroplast genomes of a tree fern (Dicksonia squarrosa) and a "fern ally" (Tmesipteris elongata), and show that the phylogeny of early land plants is basically as expected, and the estimates of divergence time are largely unaffected after removing the fastest evolving sites. The tree fern shows the major reduction in the rate of evolution, and there has been a major slowdown in the rate of mutation in both families of tree ferns. We suggest that this is related to a generation time effect; if there is a long time period between generations, then this is probably incompatible with a high mutation rate because otherwise nearly every propagule would probably have several lethal mutations. This effect will be especially strong in organisms that have large numbers of cell divisions between generations. This shows the necessity of going beyond phylogeny and integrating its study with other properties of organisms.

Molecular evolution and the latitudinal biodiversity gradient

Species density is higher in the tropics (low latitude) than in temperate regions (high latitude) resulting in a latitudinal biodiversity gradient (LBG). The LBG must be generated by differential rates of speciation and/or extinction and/or immigration among regions, but the role of each of these processes is still unclear. Recent studies examining differences in rates of molecular evolution have inferred a direct link between rate of molecular evolution and rate of speciation, and postulated these as important drivers of the LBG. Here we review the molecular genetic evidence and examine the factors that might be responsible for differences in rates of molecular evolution. Critical to this is the directionality of the relationship between speciation rates and rates of molecular evolution.

Exploring the correlations between sequence evolution rate and phenotypic divergence across the Mammalian tree provides insights into adaptive evolution

Sequence evolution behaves in a relatively consistent manner, leading to one of the fundamental paradigms in biology, the existence of a 'molecular clock'. The molecular clock can be distilled to the concept of accumulation of substitutions, through time yielding a stable rate from which we can estimate lineage divergence. Over the last 50 years, evolutionary biologists have obtained an in-depth understanding of this clock's nuances. It has been fine-tuned by taking into account the vast heterogeneity in rates across lineages and genes, leading to 'relaxed' molecular clock methods for timetree reconstruction. Sequence rate varies with life history traits including body size, generation time and metabolic rate, and we review recent studies on this topic. However, few studies have explicitly examined correlates between molecular evolution and morphological evolution. The patterns observed across diverse lineages suggest that rates of molecular and morphological evolution are largely decoupled. We discuss how identifying the molecular mechanisms behind rapid functional radiations are central to understanding evolution. The vast functional divergence within mammalian lineages that have relatively 'slow' sequence evolution refutes the hypotheses that pulses in diversification yielding major phenotypic change are the result of steady accumulation of substitutions. Patterns rather suggest phenotypic divergence is likely caused by regulatory alterations mediated through mechanisms such as insertions/deletions in functional regions. These can rapidly arise and sweep to fixation faster than predicted from a lineage's sequence neutral substitution rate, enabling species to leapfrog between phenotypic 'islands'. We suggest research directions that could illuminate mechanisms behind the functional diversity we see today.

Rates of molecular evolution and diversification in plants: chloroplast substitution rates correlate with species-richness in the Proteaceae

BACKGROUND

Many factors have been identified as correlates of the rate of molecular evolution, such as body size and generation length. Analysis of many molecular phylogenies has also revealed correlations between substitution rates and clade size, suggesting a link between rates of molecular evolution and the process of diversification. However, it is not known whether this relationship applies to all lineages and all sequences. Here, in order to investigate how widespread this phenomenon is, we investigate patterns of substitution in chloroplast genomes of the diverse angiosperm family Proteaceae. We used DNA sequences from six chloroplast genes (6278bp alignment with 62 taxa) to test for a correlation between diversification and the rate of substitutions.

RESULTS

Using phylogenetically-independent sister pairs, we show that species-rich lineages of Proteaceae tend to have significantly higher chloroplast substitution rates, for both synonymous and non-synonymous substitutions.

CONCLUSIONS

We show that the rate of molecular evolution in chloroplast genomes is correlated with net diversification rates in this large plant family. We discuss the possible causes of this relationship, including molecular evolution driving diversification, speciation increasing the rate of substitutions, or a third factor causing an indirect link between molecular and diversification rates. The link between the synonymous substitution rate and clade size is consistent with a role for the mutation rate of chloroplasts driving the speed of reproductive isolation. We find no significant differences in the ratio of non-synonymous to synonymous substitutions between lineages differing in net diversification rate, therefore we detect no signal of population size changes or alteration in selection pressures that might be causing this relationship.

Is regional species diversity bounded or unbounded?

Two conflicting hypotheses have been proposed to explain large-scale species diversity patterns and dynamics. The unbounded hypothesis proposes that regional diversity depends only on time and diversification rate and increases without limit. The bounded hypothesis proposes that ecological constraints place upper limits on regional diversity and that diversity is usually close to its limit. Recent evidence from the fossil record, phylogenetic analysis, biogeography, and phenotypic disparity during lineage diversification suggests that diversity is constrained by ecological processes but that it is rarely asymptotic. Niche space is often unfilled or can be more finely subdivided and still permit coexistence, and new niche space is often created before ecological limits are reached. Damped increases in diversity over time are the prevalent pattern, suggesting the need for a new 'damped increase hypothesis'. The damped increase hypothesis predicts that diversity generally increases through time but that its rate of increase is often slowed by ecological constraints. However, slowing due to niche limitation must be distinguished from other possible mechanisms creating similar patterns. These include sampling artifacts, the inability to detect extinctions or declines in clade diversity with some methods, the distorting effects of correlated speciation-extinction dynamics, the likelihood that opportunities for allopatric speciation will vary in space and time, and the role of undetected natural enemies in reducing host ranges and thus slowing speciation rates. The taxonomic scope of regional diversity studies must be broadened to include all ecologically similar species so that ecological constraints may be accurately inferred. The damped increase hypothesis suggests that information on evolutionary processes such as time-for-speciation and intrinsic diversification rates as well as ecological factors will be required to explain why regional diversity varies among times, places and taxa.

The genome as a life-history character: why rate of molecular evolution varies between mammal species

DNA sequences evolve at different rates in different species. This rate variation has been most closely examined in mammals, revealing a large number of characteristics that can shape the rate of molecular evolution. Many of these traits are part of the mammalian life-history continuum: species with small body size, rapid generation turnover, high fecundity and short lifespans tend to have faster rates of molecular evolution. In addition, rate of molecular evolution in mammals might be influenced by behaviour (such as mating system), ecological factors (such as range restriction) and evolutionary history (such as diversification rate). I discuss the evidence for these patterns of rate variation, and the possible explanations of these correlations. I also consider the impact of these systematic patterns of rate variation on the reliability of the molecular date estimates that have been used to suggest a Cretaceous radiation of modern mammals, before the final extinction of the dinosaurs.