Data from: Evidence of concurrent local adaptation and high phenotypic plasticity in a polar microeukaryote

• Main Authors: Rengefors, Karin, Logares, Ramiro, Laybourn-Parry, Johanna, Gast, Rebecca J.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: polar; AFLP data; ITS rRNA; Salinity; Polarella glacialis; dinoflagellate; Antarctic; Arctic; The Antarctic; Vestfold; Vestfold Hills; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://zenodo.org/record/4958081; https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.07b2d

Here we investigated whether there is evidence of local adaptation in strains of an ancestrally marine dinoflagellate to the lacustrine environment they now inhabit (optimal genotypes) and/or if they have evolved phenotypic plasticity (a range of phenotypes). Eleven strains of Polarella glacialis were isolated and cultured from three different environments: the polar seas, a hyposaline and a hypersaline Antarctic lake. Local adaptation was tested by comparing growth rates of lacustrine and marine strains at their own and reciprocal site conditions. To determine phenotypic plasticity, we measured the reaction norm for salinity. We found evidence of both, limited local adaptation and higher phenotypic plasticity in lacustrine strains when compared with marine ancestors. At extreme high salinities, local lake strains outperformed other strains, and at extreme low salinities, strains from the hyposaline lake outperformed all other strains. The data suggest that lake populations may have evolved higher phenotypic plasticity in the lake habitats compared with the sea, presumably due to the high temporal variability in salinity in the lacustrine systems. Moreover, the interval of salinity tolerance differed between strains from the hyposaline and hypersaline lakes, indicating local adaptation promoted by different salinity. PGAFLPstructureinput2AFLP scored data (0,1) from 409 AFLP loci (5 combined primer pairs). Loci listed in row 1. Strain names listed in column 1.ITS r RNA Sequence alignment for Polarella glacialisSequence alignment of nine Polarella glacialis strains from the Vestfold Hills, Antarctica; the Antarctic Sea; and the Arctic Sea, based on the ITS region (Logares et al. 2009). All sequences deposited in Genbank (see table 1)alignment_cut_einsi2_dinos_karin.fasta