SoylentNews

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The diversity of animals is one of the most fascinating aspects of nature. All habitats on the planet, be it land, water, or air, are occupied by species with incredible adaptations to their environment. One way to address the question of how this diversity has evolved is by comparing genes across different species. During evolution, genes can be created, get mutated or duplicated, and even can get lost.

To investigate to what extent gene losses can contribute to different adaptations, Michael Hiller and his colleagues from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresden developed a computational method to identify gene losses and systematically searched the genomes of 62 mammals to analyze which genes are lost in which species.

Their findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, highlight a number of previously unknown gene losses that may have occurred as a consequence of a previous, existing adaptation, or – and more interesting – that may have played a direct role in the evolution of a new morphological or physiological adaptation.

A genomics approach reveals insights into the importance of gene losses for mammalian adaptations (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-03667-1) (DX)

Original Submission