Evolutionary Applications
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Evolutionary Applications is a fully peer-reviewed open access journal. It publishes papers that utilize concepts from evolutionary biology to address biological questions of health, social and economic relevance. Papers are expected to employ evolutionary concepts or methods to make contributions to areas such as (but not limited to): medicine, agriculture, forestry, exploitation and management..
Evolutionary Applications
4d ago
Abstract
The increasing application of road deicing agents (e.g., NaCl) has caused widespread salinization of freshwater environments. Chronic exposure to toxic NaCl levels can impact freshwater biota at genome to ecosystem scales, yet the degree of harm caused by road salt pollution is likely to vary among habitats and populations. The background ion chemistry of freshwater environments may strongly impact NaCl toxicity, with greater harm occurring in ion-poor, soft water conditions. In addition, populations exposed to salinization may evolve increased NaCl tolerance. Notably, if organisms ar ..read more
Evolutionary Applications
4d ago
Abstract
Plant collections held by botanic gardens and arboreta are key components of ex situ conservation. Maintaining genetic diversity in such collections allows them to be used as resources for supplementing wild populations. However, most recommended minimum sample sizes for sufficient ex situ genetic diversity are based on microsatellite markers, and it remains unknown whether these sample sizes remain valid in light of more recently developed next-generation sequencing (NGS) approaches. To address this knowledge gap, we examine how ex situ conservation status and sampling recommendation ..read more
Evolutionary Applications
4d ago
Abstract
Populations composed of individuals descended from multiple distinct genetic lineages often feature significant differences in phenotypic frequencies. We considered hatchery production of steelhead, the migratory anadromous form of the salmonid species Oncorhynchus mykiss, and investigated how differences among genetic lineages and environmental variation impacted life history traits. We genotyped 23,670 steelhead returning to the four California Central Valley hatcheries over 9 years from 2011 to 2019, confidently assigning parentage to 13,576 individuals to determine age and date of ..read more
Evolutionary Applications
1w ago
Abstract
Genetic monitoring of Pacific salmon in the Columbia River basin provides crucial information to fisheries managers that is otherwise challenging to obtain using traditional methods. Monitoring programs such as genetic stock identification (GSI) and parentage-based tagging (PBT) involve genotyping tens of thousands of individuals annually. Although rare, these large sample collections inevitably include misidentified species, which exhibit low genotyping success on species-specific Genotyping-in-Thousands by sequencing (GT-seq) panels. For laboratories involved in large-scale genotypi ..read more
Evolutionary Applications
1w ago
Abstract
The decline of lions (Panthera leo) in Kenya has raised conservation concerns about their overall population health and long-term survival. This study aimed to assess the genetic structure, differentiation and diversity of lion populations in the country, while considering the influence of past management practices. Using a lion-specific Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) panel, we genotyped 171 individuals from 12 populations representative of areas with permanent lion presence. Our results revealed a distinct genetic pattern with pronounced population structure, confirmed a north ..read more
Evolutionary Applications
1w ago
Abstract
Genomic structural variants (SVs) are now recognized as an integral component of intraspecific polymorphism and are known to contribute to evolutionary processes in various organisms. However, they are inherently difficult to detect and genotype from readily available short-read sequencing data, and therefore remain poorly documented in wild populations. Salmonid species displaying strong interpopulation variability in both life history traits and habitat characteristics, such as Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), offer a prime context for studying adaptive polymorphism, but the contribut ..read more
Evolutionary Applications
1w ago
Abstract
Understanding how marine organisms adapt to local environments is crucial for predicting how populations will respond to global climate change. The genomic basis, environmental factors and evolutionary processes involved in local adaptation are however not well understood. Here we use Atlantic herring, an abundant, migratory and widely distributed marine fish with substantial genomic resources, as a model organism to evaluate local adaptation. We examined genomic variation and its correlation with environmental variables across a broad environmental gradient, for 15 spawning aggregati ..read more
Evolutionary Applications
1w ago
Abstract
Adverse, postnatal conditions experienced during development are known to induce lingering effects on morphology, behaviour, reproduction and survival. Despite the importance of early developmental stress for shaping the adult phenotype, it is largely unknown which molecular mechanisms allow for the induction and maintenance of such phenotypic effects once the early environmental conditions are released. Here we aimed to investigate whether lasting early developmental phenotypic changes are associated with post-developmental DNA methylation changes. We used a cross-foster and brood si ..read more
Evolutionary Applications
2w ago
Abstract
Mexican native maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) is adapted to a wide range of climatic and edaphic conditions. Here, we focus specifically on the potential role of root anatomical variation in this adaptation. Given the investment required to characterize root anatomy, we present a machine-learning approach using environmental descriptors to project trait variation from a relatively small training panel onto a larger panel of genotyped and georeferenced Mexican maize accessions. The resulting models defined potential biologically relevant clines across a complex environment that we used sub ..read more
Evolutionary Applications
2w ago
Abstract
Most pathogens are generalists capable of infecting multiple host species or strains. Trade-offs in performance among different hosts are expected to limit the evolution of generalism. Despite the commonness of generalism, the variation in infectivity, transmission, and trade-offs in performance among host species have rarely been studied in the wild. To understand the ecological and evolutionary drivers of multi-host pathogen infectivity and transmission potential, I studied disease severity, transmission dynamics, and infectivity variation of downy mildew pathogen Peronospora sparsa ..read more