Mitochondrial DNA and bindin gene sequence evolution among allopatric species of the sea urchin genus Arbacia |
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Authors: | Metz EC; Gomez-Gutierrez G; Vacquier VD |
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Institution: | Marine Biology Research Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla 92093-0202, USA. emetz@ucsd.edu |
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Abstract: | Sea urchins of the genus Arbacia (order Stirodonta) have discontinuous
allopatric distributions ranging over thousands of kilometers.
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences were used to reconstruct phylogenetic
relationships of four Arbacia species and their geographic populations.
There is little evidence of genetic structuring of populations within
species, except in two cases at range extremes. The mtDNA sequence
differentiation between species suggests that divergence occurred about 4-9
MYA. Gene sequences encoding the sperm protein bindin and its intron were
obtained and compared with the mtDNA phylogeny. Sea urchins among the
well-studied echinoid order Camarodonta, with degrees of mtDNA divergence
similar to those of Arbacia species, are known to have remarkable variation
in bindin. However, in Arbacia, little variation in deduced amino acid
sequences of bindin was found, indicating that purifying selection acts on
the protein. In contrast, bindin intron sequences showed much
differentiation, including numerous insertion/deletions. Fertilization
experiments performed between a divergent pair of Arbacia species from the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans revealed no evidence of blocks to gamete
recognition. In Arbacia, fertilization specificities may have evolved
relatively slowly as a result of extensive gene flow within species,
greater functional constraint on the bindin polypeptide, or reduced
selective pressure for species recognition in singly occurring species.
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