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Research article - Peer-reviewed, 2020

Ecological adaptation in Atlantic herring is associated with large shifts in allele frequencies at hundreds of loci

Han, Fan; Jamsandekar, Minal; Pettersson, Mats E.; Su, Leyi; Fuentes-Pardo, Angela P.; Davis, Brian W.; Bekkevold, Dorte; Berg, Florian; Casini, Michele; Dahle, Geir; Farrell, Edward D.; Folkvord, Arild; Andersson, Leif

Abstract

Atlantic herring is widespread in North Atlantic and adjacent waters and is one of the most abundant vertebrates on earth. This species is well suited to explore genetic adaptation due to minute genetic differentiation at selectively neutral loci. Here, we report hundreds of loci underlying ecological adaptation to different geographic areas and spawning conditions. Four of these represent megabase inversions confirmed by long read sequencing. The genetic architecture underlying ecological adaptation in herring deviates from expectation under a classical infinitesimal model for complex traits because of large shifts in allele frequencies at hundreds of loci under selection.

Published in

eLife
2020, Volume: 9, article number: e61076

      SLU Authors

    • Associated SLU-program

      Coastal and sea areas

      UKÄ Subject classification

      Agricultural Science
      Evolutionary Biology
      Ecology

      Publication identifier

      DOI: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.61076

      Permanent link to this page (URI)

      https://res.slu.se/id/publ/109263