RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 MSAP in Tiger Snakes: Island populations are epigenetically more divergent
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 118836
DO 10.1101/118836
A1 Carlos Marcelino Rodríguez López
A1 Moumouni Konate
A1 Vicki Thomson
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/03/21/118836.abstract
AB Research on changes in phenotypic plasticity within wild animal populations is centuries old, however far fewer studies have investigated the role that epigenetics play in the development or persistence of natural variation in response to environmental change. Tiger snakes (Notechis scutatus) are an ideal study organism to investigate the link between epigenetics and phenotypic responses to environmental change, as they live on a range of offshore islands with different environments and prey types while exhibiting gigantism and dwarfism in body and head size. In this study, we have generated methylation sensitive amplified polymorphism (MSAP) data and found that, in general, Tiger Snakes are more epigenetically differentiated than genetically differentiated. Each island group has a distinctive epigenetic signal, suggesting the Tiger Snakes on each island group have adapted to their specific environment. This is also supported by the strong positive relationship between epigenetic differentiation and isolation age, as well as between epigenetic/genetic signal and both temperature and precipitation. The Tiger Snakes from Kangaroo Island, which has a complex landscape/environment like the mainland rather than the simple landscape/environment of each of the smaller islands, are both genetically and epigenetically more like the mainland. As the MSAP loci are randomly distributed across the genome, we believe a closer examination of the epigenetic modifications near genes involved in growth, development, and lipid metabolism will allow us to investigate the epigenetic basis for the natural variation in head size and body size on the islands.