We present a molecular assessment of the widely-distributed ricefrog(Fejervarya limnocharis)which provides many newsamples that add to knowledge of their phylogeography within China and considersgenetic support forfiv...We present a molecular assessment of the widely-distributed ricefrog(Fejervarya limnocharis)which provides many newsamples that add to knowledge of their phylogeography within China and considersgenetic support forfive Chinese species withinthis complex.TwomtDNAfragments from 270 individuals and eight nuclearDNAloci(105 individuals)were sequenced from specimens sampled from across China.Data from nine specimens from China,Indonesia and Japan were also retrieved from previous studies.MtDNAwas informativeabout population divergence within China and indicated one major clade(with four subclades)from South China and the Zhoushan Archipelago,Zhejiang,China,and a second major clade(with eight subclades)from other parts of China.Recent demographic expansions(less than 50ka ago)were detected within three of these 12 subclades,potentially associa ted with lowered sea-levels after marine transgressions.Nota bly,most frogs from the previously unstudied Zhoushan Archipelago(eastern China)were found to be closely related to Japanese populations.BPPand STACEY species delimitation analyses of the multilocus data favoured five candidate species within the complex.Previous work had described Fejervaryamultistriata and F.kawamurai from the Chinese mainland although here we detected considerable genetic divergence within the latter and found that this may be indicative of two species.One of these corresponds to the Zhoushan Archipelago,Zhejiang,China and Japan,and the other from most parts of Chinese mainland.This study provides a large multilocus dataset that contributes to the systematics of this species complex.展开更多
Physiological and metabolic processes of ectotherms are markedly influenced by ambient temperature. Previous studies have shown that the abdominal black-speckled area becomes larger with increased elevation in plateau...Physiological and metabolic processes of ectotherms are markedly influenced by ambient temperature. Previous studies have shown that the abdominal black-speckled area becomes larger with increased elevation in plateau Phrynocephalus, however, no studies have verified the hypothesis that this variation is correlated with the lizard＇s thermoregulation. In this study, infrared thermal imaging technology was first used to study the skin temperature variation of torsos, heads, limbs and tails of a cold-climate agamid lizard, Phrynocephalus guinanensis. The heating rates of the central abdominal black-speckled skin area and peripheral non-black-speckled skin area under solar radiation were compared. Our results showed that the heating rates of limbs and tails were relatively faster than the torsos, as heating time was extended, rates gradually slowed before stabilizing under solar radiation. Under the environment without solar radiation, the cooling rates of limbs and tails were also relatively faster than the torsos of lizards, the rates slowed down and finally became stable as the cooling time was extended. We also found that the heating rate of the abdominal black-speckled skin area was faster than the nearby non-black-speckled skin area. These results increased our insights into the functional significance of these phenotypic traits and help explain their covariation with the thermal environment in these cold-climate agamid lizards.展开更多
Animals living in extremely high elevations have to adapt to low temperatures and low oxygen availability(hypoxia),but the underlying genetic mechanisms associated with these adaptations are still unclear.The mitochon...Animals living in extremely high elevations have to adapt to low temperatures and low oxygen availability(hypoxia),but the underlying genetic mechanisms associated with these adaptations are still unclear.The mitochondrial respiratory chain can provide>95%of the ATP in animal cells,and its efficiency is influenced by temperature and oxygen availability.Therefore,the respiratory chain complexes(RCCs)could be important molecular targets for positive selection associated with respiratory adaptation in high-altitude environments.Here,we investigated positive selection in 5 RCCs and their assembly factors by analyzing sequences of 106 genes obtained through RNA-seq of all 15 Chinese Phrynocephalus lizard species,which are distributed from lowlands to the Tibetan plateau(average elevation>4,500 m).Our results indicate that evidence of positive selec-tion on RCC genes is not significantly different from assembly factors,and we found no difference in selective pressures among the 5 complexes.We specifically looked for positive selection in line-ages where changes in habitat elevation happened.The group of lineages evolving from low to high altitude show stronger signals of positive selection than lineages evolving from high to low elevations.Lineages evolving from low to high elevation also have more shared codons under positive selection,though the changes are not equivalent at the amino acid level.This study advan-ces our understanding of the genetic basis of animal respiratory metabolism evolution in extreme high environments and provides candidate genes for further confirmation with functional analyses.展开更多
Color variation among populations is thought to be either due to genetic variation or phenotype plasticity.In this study,we found that an agamid lizard,Phrynocephalus theobaldi,inhabiting elevations greater than any o...Color variation among populations is thought to be either due to genetic variation or phenotype plasticity.In this study,we found that an agamid lizard,Phrynocephalus theobaldi,inhabiting elevations greater than any other reptile,displayed a significantly darker spotted marking on the central ventral abdomen in higher populations than in lower populations.The grey spotted area only occurred in elevations>4200 m,and also increased with increased elevation.The ratio of the size of the dark colored area to the degree of skin luminance/reflectance was used to test whether the lizard has a larger and darker spotted area at higher elevations.This ratio was significantly positively associated with elevation rather than substrate color.The lizard did not display sexual difference in this phenotype.Temperature had a significant influence on the brightness of central abdomen,but temperature-related plasticity of this trait was much smaller than the magnitude of the difference between higher(>4200 m)and lower populations(<4200 m).Common garden experiments showed that genetic inheritance,rather than phenotype plasticity,played a dominant role in this variation.Our research addressed the darkness of a body region that is rarely analyzed because it is shielded from direct insolation.The idea that ventral color could be related to thermoregulation is shown to be worthy of further research.展开更多
Phrynocephalus guinanensis has sexual dimorphism in abdominal coloration, but its ontogenetic development of sexual size dimorphism （SSD） is unknown. Using mark-recapture data during four days each year from August ...Phrynocephalus guinanensis has sexual dimorphism in abdominal coloration, but its ontogenetic development of sexual size dimorphism （SSD） is unknown. Using mark-recapture data during four days each year from August from 2014 to 2016, we investigated the development of sex ratios, SSD, sex-specific survivorship and growth rates in a population of P guinanensis. Our results indicated that the sex ratio of males to females was 1：2.8. Males had a lower survival rate （6%） than females （14%） across the age range from hatchling to adult, which supported the discovered female-biased sex ratio potentially associated with the low survival rate of males between hatchlings and juveniles. Male-biased SSD in tail length and head width existed in adults rather than in hatchling or juvenile lizards. The growth rates in body dimensions were undistinguishable between the sexes during the age from hatchling to juvenile, but the growth rate in head length from juvenile to adult was significantly larger in males than females. Average growth rate of all morphological measurements from hatchling to juvenile were larger compared with corresponding measurements from juvenile to adult, but only being significant in tail length, head width, abdomen length in females and snout-vent length in males. We provided a case study to strengthen our understanding of the important life history traits on how a viviparous lizard population can survive and develop their morphology in cold climates.展开更多
Relatively little is known about the relationship between Bufo gargarizans populations from Zhoushan Archipelago and nearby continental regions on the Pacific coast of eastern China.In this paper,155 new specimens of ...Relatively little is known about the relationship between Bufo gargarizans populations from Zhoushan Archipelago and nearby continental regions on the Pacific coast of eastern China.In this paper,155 new specimens of B.gargarizans from Zhoushan Archipelago and adjacent continents and 71 published specimens of B.gargarizans from China's Mainland were studied.Phylogeographical and dating analyses of B.gargarizans were performed using mitochondrial DNA sequencing with a length of 1436 bp.A mt DNA tree that indicated seven major clades was obtained.The earliest split in the mt DNA tree corresponding to the divergence of populations from the western highland region occurred approximately 4.0 million years ago（mya）.A subsequent clade occurred about 3.4 mya,with cladogenesis continuing toward the end of the Pleistocene.The continental clades were distributed in the western,central and northeastern regions of China.Zhoushan Archipelago clades consisted of two largely geographically overlapping subclades with the mt DNA divergence time of 0.73 mya.These results indicated there was extensive dispersal after vicariance.The B.gargarizans populations on Zhoushan Archipelago most probably originated from populations in nearby eastern continental regions of China.It was concluded that geological uplifting during the Pliocene and several sea-level changes in Pleistocene might have influenced the divergence and population demographical history of this species.展开更多
Dear Editor,Antimicrobial peptides(AMPs)are an ancient class of short polypeptides present in a large number of species in nature with a variety of functions.1 PFR(PFWRIRIRR-NH 2)is one kind of AMP identified among th...Dear Editor,Antimicrobial peptides(AMPs)are an ancient class of short polypeptides present in a large number of species in nature with a variety of functions.1 PFR(PFWRIRIRR-NH 2)is one kind of AMP identified among the derivatives of lactoferrin.2 Our previous results showed that PFR inhibited the proliferation of human acute myeloid leukemia(AML)HL60 cells potentially without toxicity against normal cells.In addition,PFR induced necrosis by membrane disruption detected using scanning electron micro-scopy.3 However,the underlying mechanisms of these effects are not clearly understood.展开更多
基金supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province, China (LY21C040002)partially by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41541002)
文摘We present a molecular assessment of the widely-distributed ricefrog(Fejervarya limnocharis)which provides many newsamples that add to knowledge of their phylogeography within China and considersgenetic support forfive Chinese species withinthis complex.TwomtDNAfragments from 270 individuals and eight nuclearDNAloci(105 individuals)were sequenced from specimens sampled from across China.Data from nine specimens from China,Indonesia and Japan were also retrieved from previous studies.MtDNAwas informativeabout population divergence within China and indicated one major clade(with four subclades)from South China and the Zhoushan Archipelago,Zhejiang,China,and a second major clade(with eight subclades)from other parts of China.Recent demographic expansions(less than 50ka ago)were detected within three of these 12 subclades,potentially associa ted with lowered sea-levels after marine transgressions.Nota bly,most frogs from the previously unstudied Zhoushan Archipelago(eastern China)were found to be closely related to Japanese populations.BPPand STACEY species delimitation analyses of the multilocus data favoured five candidate species within the complex.Previous work had described Fejervaryamultistriata and F.kawamurai from the Chinese mainland although here we detected considerable genetic divergence within the latter and found that this may be indicative of two species.One of these corresponds to the Zhoushan Archipelago,Zhejiang,China and Japan,and the other from most parts of Chinese mainland.This study provides a large multilocus dataset that contributes to the systematics of this species complex.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31372183, 41541002)
文摘Physiological and metabolic processes of ectotherms are markedly influenced by ambient temperature. Previous studies have shown that the abdominal black-speckled area becomes larger with increased elevation in plateau Phrynocephalus, however, no studies have verified the hypothesis that this variation is correlated with the lizard＇s thermoregulation. In this study, infrared thermal imaging technology was first used to study the skin temperature variation of torsos, heads, limbs and tails of a cold-climate agamid lizard, Phrynocephalus guinanensis. The heating rates of the central abdominal black-speckled skin area and peripheral non-black-speckled skin area under solar radiation were compared. Our results showed that the heating rates of limbs and tails were relatively faster than the torsos, as heating time was extended, rates gradually slowed before stabilizing under solar radiation. Under the environment without solar radiation, the cooling rates of limbs and tails were also relatively faster than the torsos of lizards, the rates slowed down and finally became stable as the cooling time was extended. We also found that the heating rate of the abdominal black-speckled skin area was faster than the nearby non-black-speckled skin area. These results increased our insights into the functional significance of these phenotypic traits and help explain their covariation with the thermal environment in these cold-climate agamid lizards.
基金This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No.31772447)the Second Tihetan Platean Scientife Expedition and Research Program(STEP),Grant No.2019 QZKK0501.VS.did this research within the framework of the HSE University Basic Research Program.
文摘Animals living in extremely high elevations have to adapt to low temperatures and low oxygen availability(hypoxia),but the underlying genetic mechanisms associated with these adaptations are still unclear.The mitochondrial respiratory chain can provide>95%of the ATP in animal cells,and its efficiency is influenced by temperature and oxygen availability.Therefore,the respiratory chain complexes(RCCs)could be important molecular targets for positive selection associated with respiratory adaptation in high-altitude environments.Here,we investigated positive selection in 5 RCCs and their assembly factors by analyzing sequences of 106 genes obtained through RNA-seq of all 15 Chinese Phrynocephalus lizard species,which are distributed from lowlands to the Tibetan plateau(average elevation>4,500 m).Our results indicate that evidence of positive selec-tion on RCC genes is not significantly different from assembly factors,and we found no difference in selective pressures among the 5 complexes.We specifically looked for positive selection in line-ages where changes in habitat elevation happened.The group of lineages evolving from low to high altitude show stronger signals of positive selection than lineages evolving from high to low elevations.Lineages evolving from low to high elevation also have more shared codons under positive selection,though the changes are not equivalent at the amino acid level.This study advan-ces our understanding of the genetic basis of animal respiratory metabolism evolution in extreme high environments and provides candidate genes for further confirmation with functional analyses.
基金supported by the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program(STEP,Grant No.2019 QZKK0501)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No.31772447)Zhejiang Natural Science Foundation(LY21C040002)。
文摘Color variation among populations is thought to be either due to genetic variation or phenotype plasticity.In this study,we found that an agamid lizard,Phrynocephalus theobaldi,inhabiting elevations greater than any other reptile,displayed a significantly darker spotted marking on the central ventral abdomen in higher populations than in lower populations.The grey spotted area only occurred in elevations>4200 m,and also increased with increased elevation.The ratio of the size of the dark colored area to the degree of skin luminance/reflectance was used to test whether the lizard has a larger and darker spotted area at higher elevations.This ratio was significantly positively associated with elevation rather than substrate color.The lizard did not display sexual difference in this phenotype.Temperature had a significant influence on the brightness of central abdomen,but temperature-related plasticity of this trait was much smaller than the magnitude of the difference between higher(>4200 m)and lower populations(<4200 m).Common garden experiments showed that genetic inheritance,rather than phenotype plasticity,played a dominant role in this variation.Our research addressed the darkness of a body region that is rarely analyzed because it is shielded from direct insolation.The idea that ventral color could be related to thermoregulation is shown to be worthy of further research.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31372183, 31772447, 31471988)
文摘Phrynocephalus guinanensis has sexual dimorphism in abdominal coloration, but its ontogenetic development of sexual size dimorphism （SSD） is unknown. Using mark-recapture data during four days each year from August from 2014 to 2016, we investigated the development of sex ratios, SSD, sex-specific survivorship and growth rates in a population of P guinanensis. Our results indicated that the sex ratio of males to females was 1：2.8. Males had a lower survival rate （6%） than females （14%） across the age range from hatchling to adult, which supported the discovered female-biased sex ratio potentially associated with the low survival rate of males between hatchlings and juveniles. Male-biased SSD in tail length and head width existed in adults rather than in hatchling or juvenile lizards. The growth rates in body dimensions were undistinguishable between the sexes during the age from hatchling to juvenile, but the growth rate in head length from juvenile to adult was significantly larger in males than females. Average growth rate of all morphological measurements from hatchling to juvenile were larger compared with corresponding measurements from juvenile to adult, but only being significant in tail length, head width, abdomen length in females and snout-vent length in males. We provided a case study to strengthen our understanding of the important life history traits on how a viviparous lizard population can survive and develop their morphology in cold climates.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant Nos.41541002 and 31372183)Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province(Grant No.LY13C030002),China
文摘Relatively little is known about the relationship between Bufo gargarizans populations from Zhoushan Archipelago and nearby continental regions on the Pacific coast of eastern China.In this paper,155 new specimens of B.gargarizans from Zhoushan Archipelago and adjacent continents and 71 published specimens of B.gargarizans from China's Mainland were studied.Phylogeographical and dating analyses of B.gargarizans were performed using mitochondrial DNA sequencing with a length of 1436 bp.A mt DNA tree that indicated seven major clades was obtained.The earliest split in the mt DNA tree corresponding to the divergence of populations from the western highland region occurred approximately 4.0 million years ago（mya）.A subsequent clade occurred about 3.4 mya,with cladogenesis continuing toward the end of the Pleistocene.The continental clades were distributed in the western,central and northeastern regions of China.Zhoushan Archipelago clades consisted of two largely geographically overlapping subclades with the mt DNA divergence time of 0.73 mya.These results indicated there was extensive dispersal after vicariance.The B.gargarizans populations on Zhoushan Archipelago most probably originated from populations in nearby eastern continental regions of China.It was concluded that geological uplifting during the Pliocene and several sea-level changes in Pleistocene might have influenced the divergence and population demographical history of this species.
基金This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.81770176)the New Century 151 Talent Project of Zhejiang Province,the 521 Talent Foundation and the Fundamental Research Funds of Zhejiang Sci-Tech University(No.2019Y001)the Science Technology Department of Zhejiang Province(No.LGC19H080001).
文摘Dear Editor,Antimicrobial peptides(AMPs)are an ancient class of short polypeptides present in a large number of species in nature with a variety of functions.1 PFR(PFWRIRIRR-NH 2)is one kind of AMP identified among the derivatives of lactoferrin.2 Our previous results showed that PFR inhibited the proliferation of human acute myeloid leukemia(AML)HL60 cells potentially without toxicity against normal cells.In addition,PFR induced necrosis by membrane disruption detected using scanning electron micro-scopy.3 However,the underlying mechanisms of these effects are not clearly understood.
