Widespread Parallel Evolution in Sticklebacks by Repeated Fixation of Ectodysplasin Alleles

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 307; no. 5717; pp. 1928 - 1933
• Main Authors: Colosimo, Pamela F, Hosemann, Kim E, Balabhadra, Sarita, Villarreal, Guadalupe, Dickson, Mark, Grimwood, Jane, Schmutz, Jeremy, Myers, Richard M, Schluter, Dolph, Kingsley, David M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Association for the Advancement of Science 25-03-2005; The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Alleles; Amino Acid Sequence; Animals; Animals, Genetically Modified; Biological and medical sciences; Biological Evolution; Body Patterning; Brackish; Chromosome Walking; Chromosomes; Cloning; Cloning, Molecular; Coding; Ectodysplasins; Evolution; Evolution (Biology); Fish; Fresh Water; Freshwater; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gasterosteus aculeatus; Gene Frequency; Genetic loci; Genetic Variation; Genetics; Genetics of eukaryotes. Biological and molecular evolution; Genomics; Genotype & phenotype; Haplotypes; Libraries; Linkage Disequilibrium; Marine; Marine fishes; Membrane Proteins - genetics; Membrane Proteins - physiology; Molecular Sequence Data; Mutation; Oceans; Parallel evolution; Phenotype; Phenotypes; Phylogeny; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; Population dynamics; Population genetics; Seawater; Selection, Genetic; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Signal Transduction; Smegmamorpha - anatomy & histology; Smegmamorpha - classification; Smegmamorpha - genetics; Smegmamorpha - growth & development; Sticklebacks; Canada; United States; Freshwater environment; Vertebrata; Gene; Pisces; Biological evolution; Morphology; Environmental factor; Animal population; Comparative study; Gasterosteus aculeatus
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.1107239

Major phenotypic changes evolve in parallel in nature by molecular mechanisms that are largely unknown. Here, we use positional cloning methods to identify the major chromosome locus controlling armor plate patterning in wild threespine sticklebacks. Mapping, sequencing, and transgenic studies show that the Ectodysplasin (EDA) signaling pathway plays a key role in evolutionary change in natural populations and that parallel evolution of stickleback low-plated phenotypes at most freshwater locations around the world has occurred by repeated selection of Eda alleles derived from an ancestral low-plated haplotype that first appeared more than two million years ago. Members of this clade of low-plated alleles are present at low frequencies in marine fish, which suggests that standing genetic variation can provide a molecular basis for rapid, parallel evolution of dramatic phenotypic change in nature.