RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 A masculinizing supergene underlies an exaggerated male reproductive morph in a spider
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2021.02.09.430505
DO 10.1101/2021.02.09.430505
A1 Hendrickx, Frederik
A1 De Corte, Zoë
A1 Sonet, Gontran
A1 Belleghem, Steven M. Van
A1 Köstlbacher, Stephan
A1 Vangestel, Carl
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/02/10/2021.02.09.430505.abstract
AB In many species, individuals can develop into strikingly different morphs, which are determined by a simple Mendelian locus. How selection shapes loci that control complex phenotypic differences remains poorly understood. In the spider Oedothorax gibbosus, males either develop into a ‘hunched’ morph with conspicuous head structures or as a fast developing ‘flat’ morph with a female-like appearance. We show that the hunched-differs from the flat-determining allele by a hunch-specific genomic fragment of approximately 3 megabases. This fragment comprises dozens of genes that duplicated from genes found at different chromosomes. All functional duplicates, including doublesex - a key sexual differentiation regulatory gene, show male-specific expression, which illustrates their combined role as a masculinizing supergene. Our findings demonstrate how extensive indel polymorphisms and duplications of regulatory genes may contribute to the evolution of co-adapted gene clusters, sex-limited reproductive morphs, and the enigmatic evolution of exaggerated sexual traits in general.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.