0000000000989182

AUTHOR

Tilman Schell

Whole-Genome Re-Sequencing Data to Infer Historical Demography and Speciation Processes in Land Snails: the Study of Two Candidula Sister Species

Despite the global biodiversity of terrestrial gastropods and their ecological and economic importance, the genomic basis of ecological adaptation and speciation in land snail taxa is still largely unknown. Here, we combined whole-genome re-sequencing with population genomics to evaluate the historical demography and the speciation process of two closely related species of land snails from western Europe, Candidula unifasciata and C. rugosiuscula. Historical demographic analysis indicated fluctuations in the size of ancestral populations, probably driven by Pleistocene climatic fluctuations. Although the current population distributions of both species do not overlap, our approximate Bayesi…

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De novogenome assembly of the land snailCandidula unifasciata(Mollusca: Gastropoda)

AbstractAmong all molluscs, land snails are an economically and scientifically interesting group comprising edible species, alien species and agricultural pests. Yet, despite its high diversity, the number of whole genomes publicly available is still scarce. Here, we present the draft genome assembly of the land snailCandidula unifasciata, a widely distributed species along central Europe, which belongs to Geomitridae family, a group highly diversified in the Western-Palearctic region. We performed a whole genome sequencing, assembly and annotation of an adult specimen based on PacBio and Oxford Nanopore long read sequences as well as Illumina data. A genome of about 1.29 Gb was generated w…

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The genomic footprint of climate adaptation inChironomus riparius

The gradual heterogeneity of climatic factors produces continuously varying selection pressures across geographic distances that leave signatures of clinal variation in the genome. Separating signatures of clinal adaptation from signatures of other evolutionary forces, such as demographic processes, genetic drift, and adaptation to specific non-clinal conditions of the immediate local environment is a major challenge. Here, we examine climate adaptation in five natural populations of the non-biting midge Chironomus riparius sampled along a climatic gradient across Europe. Our study integrates experimental data, individual genome resequencing, Pool-Seq data, and population genetic modelling.…

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tbg - a new file format for genomic data

AbstractMotivationThe question of determining whether a Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) or a variant in general leads to a change in the amino acid sequence of a protein coding gene is often a laborious and time-consuming challenge. Here, we introduce the tbg file format for storing genomic data and tbg-tools, a user-friendly toolbox for the faster analysis of SNPs. The file format stores information for each nucleotide in each gene, allowing to predict which change in the amino acid sequence will be caused by a variant in the nucleotide sequence. Our new tool therefore has the potential to make biological sense of the unprecedented amount of genome-wide genetic variation that research…

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De novo genome assembly of the land snail Candidula unifasciata (Mollusca: Gastropoda)

Abstract Among all molluscs, land snails are a scientifically and economically interesting group comprising edible species, alien species and agricultural pests. Yet, despite their high diversity, the number of genome drafts publicly available is still scarce. Here, we present the draft genome assembly of the land snail Candidula unifasciata, a widely distributed species along central Europe, belonging to the Geomitridae family, a highly diversified taxon in the Western-Palearctic region. We performed whole genome sequencing, assembly and annotation of an adult specimen based on PacBio and Oxford Nanopore long read sequences as well as Illumina data. A genome draft of about 1.29 Gb was gene…

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De Novo Genome Assembly of the Raccoon Dog (Nyctereutes Procyonoides)

The raccoon dog, Nyctereutes procyonoides (NCBI Taxonomy ID: 34880, Figure 1a) belongs to the family Canidae, with foxes (genus Vulpes) being their closest relatives (Lindblad-Toh et al., 2005; Sun et al., 2019). Its original distribution in East Asia ranges from south-eastern Siberia to northern Vietnam and the Japanese islands. In the early 20th century, the raccoon dog was introduced into Western Russia for fur breeding and hunting purposes, which led to its widespread establishment in many European countries, Figure 1b. Together with the raccoon (Procyon lotor), it is now listed in Europe as an invasive species of Union concern (Regulation (EU) No. 1143/2014) and member states are requi…

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Extended material and methods from Whole-genome re-sequencing data to infer historical demography and speciation processes in land snails: the study of two Candidula sister species

Despite the global biodiversity of terrestrial gastropods and their ecological and economic importance, the genomic basis of ecological adaptation and speciation in land snail taxa is still largely unknown. Here, we combined whole-genome re-sequencing with population genomics to evaluate the historical demography and the speciation process of two closely related species of land snails from western Europe, Candidula unifasciata and C. rugosiuscula. Historical demographic analysis indicated fluctuations in the size of ancestral populations, probably driven by Pleistocene climatic fluctuations. Although the current population distributions of both species do not overlap, our approximate Bayesi…

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Characterizing a hybrid zone between a cryptic species pair of freshwater snails.

Characterizing hybrid zones and their dynamics is a central goal in evolutionary biology, but this is particularly challenging for morphologically cryptic species. The lack of conspicuous divergence between parental types means intermediate hybrid forms often go undetected. We aimed to detect and characterize a suspected hybrid zone between a pair of morphologically cryptic lineages of the freshwater snail, Radix. We sampled Radix from across a contact zone between two mitochondrial lineages (Radix balthica and an undescribed lineage termed 'MOTU3') and detected admixture between two nuclear genotype clusters, which were significantly but not categorically associated with the mitochondrial …

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ModEst - Precise estimation of genome size from NGS data

AbstractPrecise estimates of genome sizes are important parameters for both theoretical and practical biodiversity genomics. We present here a fast, easy-to-implement and precise method to estimate genome size from the number of bases sequenced and the mean sequence coverage. To estimate the latter, we take advantage of the fact that a precise estimation of the Poisson distribution parameter lambda is possible from truncated data, restricted to the part of the coverage distribution representing the true underlying distribution. With simulations we could show that reasonable genome size estimates can be gained even from low-coverage (10X), highly discontinuous genome drafts. Comparison of es…

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Table S2. from Whole-genome re-sequencing data to infer historical demography and speciation processes in land snails: the study of two Candidula sister species

Genes identified in MKT test as positively selected. Given are their UniProt ID, gene names, a short functional description, their potential role in speciation and a respective citation where available. Roles in speciation are colour coded for intragenomic molecular compatibility (green), reproductive compatibility (orange) and ecological adaptation (blue). Genes that could not be specifically linked with either of these processes are highlighted in grey

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Table S1: from Whole-genome re-sequencing data to infer historical demography and speciation processes in land snails: the study of two Candidula sister species

Sampling localities and voucher numbers of specimens used for this study

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Data from: Characterising a hybrid zone between a cryptic species pair of freshwater snails

Characterising hybrid zones and their dynamics is a central goal in evolutionary biology, but this is particularly challenging for morphologically cryptic species. The lack of conspicuous divergence between parental types means intermediate hybrid forms often go undetected. We aimed to detect and characterise a suspected hybrid zone between a pair of morphologically cryptic lineages of the freshwater snail, Radix. We sampled Radix from across a contact zone between two mitochondrial lineages (Radix balthica and an undescribed lineage termed MOTU3) and detected admixture between two nuclear genotype clusters, which were significantly but not categorically associated with the mitochondrial li…

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Table S3. from Whole-genome re-sequencing data to infer historical demography and speciation processes in land snails: the study of two Candidula sister species

Gene Ontology (GO) term enrichment analysis for the genes within early diverged windows (Wearly). Significantly (P < 0.05) overrepresented GO terms in the category biological process (BP). Probability values for the number of observed genes being within random expectations are based on the weight Fisher algorithm

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