Computational Biology
@ Comenius University in Bratislava

Andrew D. Foote, Yue Liu, Gregg W. C. Thomas, Tomas Vinar, Jessica Alfoldi, Jixin Deng, Shannon Dugan, Cornelis E. {van Elk}, Margaret E. Hunter, Vandita Joshi, Ziad Khan, Christie Kovar, Sandra L. Lee, Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, Annalaura Mancia, Rasmus Nielsen, Xiang Qin, Jiaxin Qu, Brian J. Raney, Nagarjun Vijay, Jochen B. W. Wolf, Matthew W. Hahn, Donna M. Muzny, Kim C. Worley, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Richard A. Gibbs. Convergent evolution of the genomes of marine mammals. Nature Genetics, 47(3):272-275. 2015.

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Download from publisher: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng.3198

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Abstract:

Marine mammals from different mammalian orders share several phenotypic traits
adapted to the aquatic environment and therefore represent a classic example of
convergent evolution. To investigate convergent evolution at the genomic level,
we sequenced and performed de novo assembly of the genomes of three species of
marine mammals (the killer whale, walrus and manatee) from three mammalian orders
that share independently evolved phenotypic adaptations to a marine existence.
Our comparative genomic analyses found that convergent amino acid substitutions
were widespread throughout the genome and that a subset of these substitutions
were in genes evolving under positive selection and putatively associated with a 
marine phenotype. However, we found higher levels of convergent amino acid
substitutions in a control set of terrestrial sister taxa to the marine mammals. 
Our results suggest that, whereas convergent molecular evolution is relatively
common, adaptive molecular convergence linked to phenotypic convergence is
comparatively rare.