Feng Ping, Liang Shichu
Key Laboratory of Ecology of Rare and Endangered Species and Environmental Protection (Guangxi Normal University), Ministry of Education, Guilin, China.
Guangxi Key Laboratory of Rare and Endangered Animal Ecology, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin, China.
PeerJ. 2018 Aug 24;6:e5570. doi: 10.7717/peerj.5570. eCollection 2018.
Sensory systems play an important role in animal survival. Changes to these systems may be critical in evolution of species in new environments. Previous studies exploring the correlation between feeding ecology and evolution mainly focused on mammals and birds, and found that the relationship was complex. However, in reptiles, the correlation between evolution and dietary preferences is still unclear. Here, we attempted to explore this relationship in representative species of the major groups of reptiles (turtles, snakes, lizards, crocodilians), for which the genome information is known. We first predicted the functionality (intact, partial, or defective) of , and then related it to the feeding preferences. As a result, we identified 11 , 12 , and 12 genes to be partial or intact and another 22 genes to be absent or pseudogenized in the 19 reptiles. We found that, as it was revealed in some other vertebrate groups, no correlation existed between feeding ecology and evolution in reptiles: genomic prediction indicated that the genes possibly have been lost or pseudogenized in snakes, but in crocodylia and testudines genes are either intact or partial, regardless of their feeding habits. Thus, we suggest that the driving force of evolution in reptiles is complex, and the feeding habit of swallowing food whole without chewing or the absence of taste buds in certain species may account for the possible umami/sweet perception loss. In addition, we propose that caution should be taken when predicting gene functionality from the publicly available genome database.
感觉系统在动物生存中起着重要作用。这些系统的变化在新环境中物种的进化过程中可能至关重要。先前探索觅食生态学与进化之间相关性的研究主要集中在哺乳动物和鸟类上，并发现这种关系很复杂。然而，在爬行动物中，进化与饮食偏好之间的相关性仍不清楚。在这里，我们试图在基因组信息已知的主要爬行动物类群（龟、蛇、蜥蜴、鳄鱼）的代表性物种中探索这种关系。我们首先预测了[具体基因名称]的功能（完整、部分或有缺陷），然后将其与觅食偏好联系起来。结果，我们在19种爬行动物中鉴定出11个、12个和12个基因是部分或完整的，另外22个基因缺失或假基因化。我们发现，正如在其他一些脊椎动物类群中所揭示的那样，爬行动物的觅食生态学与[具体基因名称]进化之间不存在相关性：基因组预测表明，[具体基因名称]在蛇类中可能已经丢失或假基因化，但在鳄目和龟鳖目中，[具体基因名称]基因要么是完整的，要么是部分的，无论它们的饮食习惯如何。因此，我们认为爬行动物中[具体基因名称]进化的驱动力很复杂，某些物种整个吞食食物而不咀嚼的饮食习惯或味蕾的缺失可能导致鲜味/甜味感知的丧失。此外，我们建议在从公开可用的基因组数据库预测基因功能时应谨慎。
