The intra- and interspecific facets of biodiversity have traditionally
been quantified and analysed separately, limiting our understanding of
how evolution has shaped biodiversity, how biodiversity (as a whole)
alters ecological dynamics, and hence eco-evolutionary feedbacks at the
community scale. Here, we propose using candidate genes
phylogenetically-conserved across species and sustaining functional
traits as an inclusive biodiversity unit transcending the intra- and
interspecific boundaries. This framework merges knowledge from
functional genomics and functional ecology, and we first provide
conceptual and technical guidelines for identifying
phylogenetically-conserved candidate genes (PCCGs) within communities,
and for measuring inclusive biodiversity from PCCGs. We then explain how
biodiversity measured at PCCGs can be linked to ecosystem functions,
which may unify recent observations that both intra- and interspecific
biodiversity are important for ecosystem functions. We then highlight
the eco-evolutionary processes shaping PCCGs diversity patterns, and
argue that their respective role can be inferred from concepts derived
from population genetics. Finally, we explain how PCCGs may shift the
field of eco-evolutionary dynamics from a focal-species approach to a
more realistic focal-community approach. This framework provides a novel
perspective to investigate the global ecosystem consequences of
diversity loss across biological scales, and how these ecological
changes further alter biodiversity evolution.
Epigenetic components are hypothesized to be sensitive to the environment, which should permit species to adapt to environmental changes. In wild populations, epigenetic variation should therefore be mainly driven by environmental variation. Here, we tested whether epigenetic variation (DNA methylation) observed in wild populations is related to their genetic background, and/or to the local environment. Focusing on two sympatric freshwater fish species (Gobio occitaniae and Phoxinus phoxinus), we tested the relationships between epigenetic differentiation, genetic differentiation (using microsatellite and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers), and environmental distances between sites. We identify positive relationships between pairwise genetic and epigenetic distances in both species. Moreover, epigenetic marks better discriminated populations than genetic markers, especially in G. occitaniae. In G. occitaniae, both pairwise epigenetic and genetic distances were significantly associated to environmental distances between sites. Nonetheless, when controlling for genetic differentiation, the link between epigenetic differentiation and environmental distances was not significant anymore, indicating a noncausal relationship. Our results suggest that fish epigenetic variation is mainly genetically determined and that the environment weakly contributed to epigenetic variation. We advocate the need to control for the genetic background of populations when inferring causal links between epigenetic variation and environmental heterogeneity in wild populations.
The intra-and interspecific facets of biodiversity have traditionally been analysed separately, limiting our understanding of how evolution has shaped biodiversity, how biodiversity (as a whole) alters ecological dynamics and hence eco-evolutionary feedbacks at the community scale. Here, we propose using candidate genes phylogenetically-conserved across species and sustaining functional traits as an inclusive biodiversity unit transcending the intra-and interspecific boundaries. This
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