Testing the Effect of Metabolic Rate on DNA Variability at the Intra-Specific Level

We tested the metabolic rate hypothesis (whereby rates of mtDNA evolution are postulated to be mediated primarily bymutagenic by-products of respiration) by examining whether mass-specific metabolic rate was correlated with root-to-tipdistance on a set of mtDNA trees for the springtail Cryptopygus a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLoS ONE
Main Authors: McGaughran, A, Holland, BR
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Public Library Science 2010
Subjects:
Biological Sciences
Genetics
Molecular Evolution
Antarctic
Antarc*
antarcticus
Cryptopygus antarcticus
Marion Island
Springtail
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0009686
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20300626
http://ecite.utas.edu.au/63292
Description
Summary:We tested the metabolic rate hypothesis (whereby rates of mtDNA evolution are postulated to be mediated primarily bymutagenic by-products of respiration) by examining whether mass-specific metabolic rate was correlated with root-to-tipdistance on a set of mtDNA trees for the springtail Cryptopygus antarcticus travei from sub-Antarctic Marion Island. UsingBayesian analyses and a novel application of the comparative phylogenetic method, we did not find significant evidencethat contemporary metabolic rates directly correlate with mutation rate (i.e., root-to-tip distance) once the underlyingphylogeny is taken into account. However, we did find significant evidence that metabolic rate is dependent on theunderlying mtDNA tree, or in other words, lineages with related mtDNA also have similar metabolic rates. We anticipatethat future analyses which apply this methodology to datasets with longer sequences, more taxa, or greater variability willhave more power to detect a significant direct correlation between metabolic rate and mutation rate. We conclude withsuggestions for future analyses that would extend the preliminary approach applied here, in particular highlighting ways totease apart oxidative stress effects from the effects of population size and/or selection coefficients operating on themolecular evolutionary rate.

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