Genomic signatures of sympatric speciation with historical and contemporary gene flow in a tropical anthozoan (Hexacorallia: Actiniaria)

Sea anemone (Anthozoa, Actiniaria) diversity in Mo'orea (French Polynesia)

Sea anemones (Order Actiniaria) are a diverse group of marine invertebrates ubiquitous across marine ecosystems. Despite their wide distribution and success, a knowledge gap persists in our understanding of their diversity within tropical systems, owed to sampling bias of larger and more charismatic species overshadowing cryptic lineages. This study aims to delineate the sea anemone diversity in Mo'orea (French Polynesia) with the use of a dataset from the Mo'orea Biocode's "BioBlitz" initiative, which prioritized the sampling of more cryptic and understudied taxa. Implementing a target enrichment approach, we integrate 71 newly sequenced samples into an expansive phylogenetic framework and contextualize Mo'orea's diversity within global distribution patterns of sea anemones. Our analysis corroborates the presence of several previously documented sea anemones in French Polynesia and identifies for the first time the occurrence of members of genera Andvakia and Aiptasiomorpha. This research unveils the diverse sea anemone ecosystem in Mo'orea, spotlighting the area's ecological significance and emphasizing the need for continued exploration. Our methodology, encompassing a broad BLAST search coupled with phylogenetic analysis, proved to be a practical and effective approach for overcoming the limitations posed by the lack of comprehensive sequence data for sea anemones. We discuss the merits and limitations of current molecular methodologies and stress the importance of further research into lesser-studied marine organisms like sea anemones. Our work sets a precedent for future phylogenetic studies stemming from BioBlitz endeavors.

Bellactis lux n. sp. (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Actiniaria: Aiptasiidae), a new sea anemone from the Gulf of Mexico

Here we describe a new species of sea anemone from the family Aiptasiidae based on specimens collected from the Gulf of Mexico (USA: Florida & Alabama). Accounts of this species have been known since the early 1990s, primarily from an underwater field guide and hobbyist aquarium literature under the name Lightbulb Anemone. We describe it as a new species from the genus Bellactis based on anatomy, histology, and cnidom. Members of this species are small in size, with a smooth, typically contracted column divided into regions based on color and bearing rows of two or three elevated cinclides in the mid column. Their tentacles are distinctive, translucent, distally inflated and can be bulbous in shape, with sub annular rings. This description synthesizes information about Bellactis and contextualizes what is known about its diversity in light of other members of the Aiptasiidae.

Ghost introgression facilitates genomic divergence of a sympatric cryptic lineage in Cycas revoluta

A cryptic lineage is a genetically diverged but morphologically unrecognized variant of a known species. Clarifying cryptic lineage evolution is essential for quantifying species diversity. In sympatric cryptic lineage divergence compared with allopatric divergence, the forces of divergent selection and mating patterns override geographical isolation. Introgression, by supplying preadapted or neutral standing genetic variations, can promote sympatric cryptic lineage divergence via selection. However, most studies concentrated on extant species introgression, ignoring the genetic legacy of introgression from extinct or unsampled lineages ("ghost introgression"). Cycads are an ideal plant for studying the influence of ghost introgression because of their common interspecific gene flow and past high extinction rate. Here, we utilized reference-based ddRADseq to clarify the role of ghost introgression in the evolution of a previously identified sympatric cryptic lineage in Cycas revoluta. After re-evaluating the evolutionary independency of cryptic lineages, the group-wise diverged single-nucleotide polymorphisms among sympatric and allopatric lineages were compared and functionally annotated. Next, we employed an approximate Bayesian computation method for hypothesis testing to clarify the cryptic lineage evolution and ghost introgression effect. SNPs with the genomic signatures of ghost introgression were further annotated. Our results reconfirmed the evolutionary independency of cryptic lineage among C. revoluta and demonstrated that ghost introgression to the noncryptic lineage facilitated their divergence. Gene function related to heat stress and disease resistance implied ecological adaptation of the main extant populations of C. revoluta.

Genomic Analyses Implicate the Amazon-Orinoco Plume as the Driver of Cryptic Speciation in a Swimming Crab

The Amazon-Orinoco plume (AOP) is the world's largest freshwater and sediment discharge into the ocean. Previous studies limited to mtDNA suggest that the swimming crab Callinectes ornatus Ordway, 1863 exists as two distinct genetic clusters separated by the AOP. However, questions concerning migration, diversification time, and species delimitation are unresolved. Densely sampling markers across the genome (SNPs) could elucidate the evolutionary processes within this species. Here, we combined mtDNA data and ddRAD-seq to explore the diversification patterns and processes within the swimming crab C. ornatus. We show great genetic differentiation between groups on the north and south sides of the plume but also signs of hybridization. Demographic modeling indicates the divergence between groups starting around 8 Mya following the AOP's formation. After a period of isolation, we detect two incidences of secondary contact with stronger migration in concordance with the North Brazil Current flow. Our results suggest speciation with gene flow explained by the interplay among the AOP, oceanographic currents, and long larval dispersal. This work represents the first investigation employing ddRAD-seq in a marine invertebrate species with distribution encompassing the north and south Atlantic and sheds light on the role of the AOP in the diversification of a marine species.

Demographic inference provides insights into the extirpation and ecological dominance of eusocial snapping shrimps

Although eusocial animals often achieve ecological dominance in the ecosystems where they occur, many populations are unstable, resulting in local extinction. Both patterns may be linked to the characteristic demography of eusocial species-high reproductive skew and reproductive division of labor support stable effective population sizes that make eusocial groups more competitive in some species, but also lower effective population sizes that increase susceptibility to population collapse in others. Here, we examine the relationship between demography and social organization in Synalpheus snapping shrimps, a group in which eusociality has evolved recently and repeatedly. We show using coalescent demographic modelling that eusocial species have had lower but more stable effective population sizes across 100,000 generations. Our results are consistent with the idea that stable population sizes may enable competitive dominance in eusocial shrimps, but they also suggest that recent population declines are likely caused by eusocial shrimps' heightened sensitivity to environmental changes, perhaps as a result of their low effective population sizes and localized dispersal. Thus, although the unique life histories and demography of eusocial shrimps have likely contributed to their persistence and ecological dominance over evolutionary timescales, these social traits may also make them vulnerable to contemporary environmental change.

Ecological speciation by sympatric host shifts in a clade of herbivorous sea slugs, with introgression and localized mitochondrial capture between species

Host shifting in insect-plant systems was historically important to the development of ecological speciation theory, yet surprisingly few studies have examined whether host shifting drives diversification of marine herbivores. When small-bodied consumers feed and also mate on a preferred host, disruptive selection can split a population into host races despite gene flow. Support for host shifts is notably lacking for invertebrates associated with macroalgae, where the scale of dispersal by planktonic larvae often far exceeds the grain of host patchiness, and adults are typically less specialized than terrestrial herbivores. Here, we present a candidate example of ecological speciation in a clade of sea slugs that primarily consume green algae in the genus Caulerpa, including highly invasive species. Ancestral character state reconstructions supported 'sea grapes' (C. racemosa, C. lentillifera) as the ancestral host for a tropical radiation of 12 Elysia spp., with one shift onto alternative Caulerpa spp. in the Indo-Pacific. A Caribbean radiation of three species included symaptric host shifts to Rhipocephalus brevicaulis in the ancestor of E. pratensis Ortea & Espinosa, 1996, and to C. prolifera in E. hamanni Krug, Vendetti & Valdes 2016, plus a niche expansion to a range of Caulerpa spp. in E. subornata Verrill, 1901. All three species are broadly sympatric across the Caribbean but are host-partitioned at a fine grain, and distinct by morphology and at nuclear loci. However, non-recombining mtDNA revealed a history of gene flow between E. pratensis and E. subornata: COI haplotypes from E. subornata were 10.4% divergent from E. pratensis haplotypes from four sites, but closely related to all E. pratensis haplotypes sampled from six Bahamian islands, indicating historical introgression and localized "mitochondrial capture." Disruptive selective likely fueled divergence and adaptation to distinct host environments, indicating ecological speciation may be an under-appreciated driver of diversification for marine herbivores as well as epibionts and other resource specialists.

Population genomics for symbiotic anthozoans: can reduced representation approaches be used for taxa without reference genomes?

Population genetic studies of symbiotic anthozoans have been historically challenging because their endosymbioses with dinoflagellates have impeded marker development. Genomic approaches like reduced representation sequencing alleviate marker development issues but produce anonymous loci, and without a reference genome, it is unknown which organism is contributing to the observed patterns. Alternative methods such as bait-capture sequencing targeting Ultra-Conserved Elements are now possible but costly. Thus, RADseq remains attractive, but how useful are these methods for symbiotic anthozoan taxa without a reference genome to separate anthozoan from algal sequences? We explore this through a case-study using a double-digest RADseq dataset for the sea anemone Bartholomea annulata. We assembled a holobiont dataset (3854 loci) for 101 individuals, then used a reference genome to create an aposymbiotic dataset (1402 loci). For both datasets, we investigated population structure and used coalescent simulations to estimate demography and population parameters. We demonstrate complete overlap in the spatial patterns of genetic diversity, demographic histories, and population parameter estimates for holobiont and aposymbiotic datasets. We hypothesize that the unique combination of anthozoan biology, diversity of the endosymbionts, and the manner in which assembly programs identify orthologous loci alleviates the need for reference genomes in some circumstances. We explore this hypothesis by assembling an additional 21 datasets using the assembly programs pyRAD and Stacks. We conclude that RADseq methods are more tractable for symbiotic anthozoans without reference genomes than previously realized.

Comparison of sequence-capture and ddRAD approaches in resolving species and populations in hexacorallian anthozoans

Genome-level sequencing is the next step in understanding species-level relationships within Anthozoa (soft corals, anemones, stony corals, and their kin) as morphological and PCR-directed (single-locus) sequencing methods often fall short of differentiating species. The sea anemone genus Metridium is a common northern temperate sea anemone whose species are difficult to differentiate using morphology alone. Here we use Metridium as a case study to confirm the low level of information available in six loci for species differentiation commonly sequenced for Actiniaria and explore and compare the efficacy of ddRAD and sequence-capture methods in species-level systematics and biogeographic studies. We produce phylogenetic trees from concatenated datasets and perform DAPC and STRUCTURE analyses using SNP data. The six conventional loci are not able to consistently differentiate species within Metridium. The sequence-capture dataset resulted in high support and resolution for both current species and relationships between geographic areas. The ddRAD datasets displayed ambiguity among species, and support between major geographic groupings was not as high as the sequence-capture datasets. The level of resolution and support resulting from the sequence-capture data, combined with the ability to add additional individuals and expand beyond the genus Metridium over time, emphasizes the utility of sequence-capture methods for both systematics and future biogeographic studies within anthozoans. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the genomic approaches in light of our findings and suggest potential implications for the biogeography of Metridium based on our sampling.

Base-substitution mutation rate across the nuclear genome of Alpheus snapping shrimp and the timing of isolation by the Isthmus of Panama

Background

The formation of the Isthmus of Panama and final closure of the Central American Seaway (CAS) provides an independent calibration point for examining the rate of DNA substitutions. This vicariant event has been widely used to estimate the substitution rate across mitochondrial genomes and to date evolutionary events in other taxonomic groups. Nuclear sequence data is increasingly being used to complement mitochondrial datasets for phylogenetic and evolutionary investigations; these studies would benefit from information regarding the rate and pattern of DNA substitutions derived from the nuclear genome.

Results

To estimate the genome-wide neutral mutation rate (µ), genotype-by-sequencing (GBS) datasets were generated for three transisthmian species pairs in Alpheus snapping shrimp. A range of bioinformatic filtering parameters were evaluated in order to minimize potential bias in mutation rate estimates that may result from SNP filtering. Using a Bayesian coalescent approach (G-PhoCS) applied to 44,960 GBS loci, we estimated µ to be 2.64E−9 substitutions/site/year, when calibrated with the closure of the CAS at 3 Ma. Post-divergence gene flow was detected in one species pair. Failure to account for this post-split migration inflates our substitution rate estimates, emphasizing the importance of demographic methods that can accommodate gene flow.

Conclusions

Results from our study, both parameter estimates and bioinformatic explorations, have broad-ranging implications for phylogeographic studies in other non-model taxa using reduced representation datasets. Our best estimate of µ that accounts for coalescent and demographic processes is remarkably similar to experimentally derived mutation rates in model arthropod systems. These results contradicted recent suggestions that the closure of the Isthmus was completed much earlier (around 10 Ma), as mutation rates based on an early calibration resulted in uncharacteristically low genomic mutation rates. Also, stricter filtering parameters resulted in biased datasets that generated lower mutation rate estimates and influenced demographic parameters, serving as a cautionary tale for the adherence to conservative bioinformatic strategies when generating reduced-representation datasets at the species level. To our knowledge this is the first use of transisthmian species pairs to calibrate the rate of molecular evolution from GBS data.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12862-021-01836-3.

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 Bayesian computation model selection approach on several speciation scenarios suggested that gene flow has occurred throughout the divergence process until recently. Positively selected genes diverging early in the process were associated with intragenomic and cyto-nuclear incompatibilities, respectively, potentially fostering reproductive isolation as well as ecological divergence. Our results suggested that the speciation between species entails complex processes involving both gene flow and ecological speciation, and that further research based on whole-genome data can provide valuable understanding on species divergence. This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue 'Molluscan genomics: broad insights and future directions for a neglected phylum'.

Global drivers of recent diversification in a marine species complex

Investigating historical gene flow in species complexes can indicate how environmental and reproductive barriers shape genome divergence during speciation. The processes influencing species diversification under environmental change remain one of the central focal points of evolutionary biology, particularly for marine organisms with high dispersal potential. We investigated genome-wide divergence, introgression patterns and inferred demographic history between species pairs of all six extant rock lobster species (Jasus spp.), which have a long larval duration of up to two years and have populated continental shelf and seamount habitats around the globe at approximately 40^o S. Genetic differentiation patterns reflected geographic isolation and the environment (i.e. habitat structure). Eastern Pacific species (J. caveorum and J. frontalis) were geographically more distant and genetically more differentiated from the remaining four species. Species associated with continental shelf habitats shared a common ancestry, but are geographically distant from one another. Similarly, species associated with island/seamount habitats in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans shared a common ancestry, but are also geographically distant. Benthic temperature was the environmental variable that explained most of the genetic differentiation (F_ST ), while controlling for the effects of geographic distance. Eastern Pacific species retained a signal of strict isolation following ancient migration, whereas species pairs from Australia and Africa, and seamounts in the Indian and Atlantic oceans, included events of introgression after secondary contact. Our results reveal important effects of habitat and demographic processes on the recent divergence of species within the genus Jasus, providing one of the first empirical studies of genome-wide drivers of diversification that incorporates all extant species in a marine genus with long pelagic larval duration.

Speciation-by-depth on coral reefs: Sympatric divergence with gene flow or cryptic transient isolation?

The distributions of many sister species in the sea overlap geographically but are partitioned along depth gradients. The genetic changes leading to depth segregation may evolve in geographic isolation as a prerequisite to coexistence or may emerge during primary divergence leading to new species. These alternatives can now be distinguished via the power endowed by the thousands of scorable loci provided by second-generation sequence data. Here, we revisit the case of two depth-segregated, genetically isolated ecotypes of the nominal Caribbean candelabrum coral Eunicea flexuosa. Previous analyses based on a handful of markers could not distinguish between models of genetic exchange after a period of isolation (consistent with secondary contact) and divergence with gene flow (consistent with primary divergence). Analyses of the history of isolation, genetic exchange and population size based on 15,640 new SNP markers derived from RNAseq data best support models where divergence began 800K BP and include epochs of divergence with gene flow, but with an intermediate period of transient isolation. Results also supported the previous conclusion that recent exchange between the ecotypes occurs asymmetrically from the Shallow lineage to the Deep. Parallel analyses of data from two other corals with depth-segregated populations (Agaricia fragilis and Pocillopora damicornis) suggest divergence leading to depth-segregated populations may begin with a period of symmetric exchange, but that an epoch of population isolation precedes more complete isolation marked by asymmetric introgression. Thus, while divergence-with-gene flow may account for much of the differentiation that separates closely related, depth-segregated species, it remains to be seen whether any critical steps in the speciation process only occur when populations are isolated.

Genomic signatures of host-associated divergence and adaptation in a coral-eating snail, Coralliophila violacea (Kiener, 1836)

The fluid nature of the ocean, combined with planktonic dispersal of marine larvae, lowers physical barriers to gene flow. However, divergence can still occur despite gene flow if strong selection acts on populations occupying different ecological niches. Here, we examined the population genomics of an ectoparasitic snail, Coralliophila violacea (Kiener 1836), that specializes on Porites corals in the Indo-Pacific. Previous genetic analyses revealed two sympatric lineages associated with different coral hosts. In this study, we examined the mechanisms promoting and maintaining the snails' adaptation to their coral hosts. Genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data from type II restriction site-associated DNA (2b-RAD) sequencing revealed two differentiated clusters of C. violacea that were largely concordant with coral host, consistent with previous genetic results. However, the presence of some admixed genotypes indicates gene flow from one lineage to the other. Combined, these results suggest that differentiation between host-associated lineages of C. violacea is occurring in the face of ongoing gene flow, requiring strong selection. Indeed, 2.7% of all SNP loci were outlier loci (73/2,718), indicative of divergence with gene flow, driven by adaptation of each C. violacea lineage to their specific coral hosts.