Biology subjects

Mieuzet, L.

Publications and source records attributed to Mieuzet, L..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

The dynamics of barrier locus accumulation during speciation with gene flow

Understanding how reproductive isolation (RI) evolves in the context of gene flow is central to explaining how new species arise. Theory predicts that the accumulation of barrier loci depends on the interplay between divergent selection, recombination, and genomic architecture. However, empirical tests that track these processes across multiple stages of divergence within species remain scarce. The pea aphid complex, which comprises sympatric host-specialised biotypes spanning a continuum of divergence, provides a powerful opportunity to examine how ecological adaptation drives reproductive isolation despite ongoing gene flow. Using whole-genome sequencing data from 13 sympatric European biotypes, we constructed a dense, reference-anchored view of genomic divergence that controls for shared genetic background and recombination landscape. Joint analyses of genetic differentiation, absolute divergence, genetic diversity, recombination, and introgression rates reveal a consistent signature of divergence with gene flow and enable robust identification of barrier loci. Across the divergence continuum, RI is highly polygenic, but barrier loci are clustered and enriched in low-recombination regions and large chromosomal rearrangements, which are expected to strengthen linkage disequilibrium and promote the coupling of barrier effects. While genome-wide differentiation and the number of barrier loci increase gradually with divergence, differentiation within barrier loci displays patterns consistent with non-continuous dynamics, which could reflect threshold effects predicted by theory. Barrier loci contain excesses of salivary effector, detoxification and chemosensory genes, highlighting their central role in host plant specialisation and RI. The representation of these gene categories varies across divergence levels, and some loci are shared among independent biotype comparisons, suggesting common functional routes to specialisation via parallel evolution or introgression. Together, our results provide a comprehensive view of the genomic architecture and evolutionary dynamics underlying speciation with gene flow, illustrating how tightly linked, polygenic architectures can facilitate adaptation and diversification in natural populations.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2022

A quarter-million-year-old polymorphism drives reproductive mode variation in the pea aphid

Although asexual linages evolved from sexual lineages in many different taxa, the genetics of sex loss remains poorly understood. We addressed this issue in the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum, whose natural populations encompass lineages performing cyclical parthenogenesis (CP) and producing one sexual generation per year, as well as obligate parthenogenetic (OP) lineages that can no longer produce sexual females but can still produce males. A SNP-based, whole-genome scan of CP and OP populations sequenced in pools (103 individuals from six populations) showed that a single X-linked region controls the variation in reproductive mode. This 840-kb region is highly divergent between CP and OP populations (FST = 34.9%), with >2000 SNPs or short Indels showing a high degree of association with the phenotypic trait. Comparison of de novo genome assemblies built from long reads did not reveal large structural rearrangements between CP and OP lineages within the candidate region. This reproductive polymorphism still appears relatively ancient, as we estimated its age at ~0.25 million years from the divergence between cp and op alleles. The low genetic differentiation between CP and OP populations at the rest of the genome (FST = 2.4%) suggests gene flow between them. Males from OP lineages thus likely transmit their op allele to new genomic backgrounds. This "contagious asexuality", combined with environment-induced selection (each reproductive mode being favored under different climates) probably contributes to the long-term persistence of the cp and op alleles. SignificanceAsexual taxa occur in all major clades of Eukaryotes and derive from related sexual species. Yet, the genetic basis for these transitions is poorly known because crosses cannot generally be performed to genetically map the ability to propagate asexually. As a result, only one gene responsible for sex loss has been identified in one animal species. Here, using pooled genome sequencing, we identified an 840kb region (carrying 32 genes) that controls the transition to permanent asexuality in the pea aphid. We also revealed that sexual and asexual alleles diverged 0.25 million years ago and that asexual lineages likely persist through contagious asexuality, providing new insights into the mechanisms of coexistence of sexual and asexual lineages.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2017

Disentangling The Causes For Faster-X Evolution In Aphids

Faster evolution of X chromosomes has been documented in several species and results from the increased efficiency of selection on recessive alleles in hemizygous males and/or from increased drift due to the smaller effective population size of X chromosomes. Aphids are excellent models for evaluating the importance of selection in faster-X evolution, because their peculiar life-cycle and unusual inheritance of sex-chromosomes lead to equal effective population sizes for X and autosomes. Because we lack a high-density genetic map for the pea aphid whose complete genome has been sequenced, we assigned its entire genome to the X and autosomes based on ratios of sequencing depth in males and females. Unexpectedly, we found frequent scaffold misassembly, but we could unambiguously locate 13,726 genes on the X and 19,263 on autosomes. We found higher non-synonymous to synonymous substitutions ratios (dN/dS) for X-linked than for autosomal genes. Our analyses of substitution rates together with polymorphism and expression data showed that relaxed selection is likely to contribute predominantly to faster-X as a large fraction of X-linked genes are expressed at low rates and thus escape selection. Yet, a minor role for positive selection is also suggested by the difference between substitution rates for X and autosomes for male-biased genes (but not for asexual female-biased genes) and by lower Tajimas D for X-linked than for autosomal genes with highly male-biased expression patterns. This study highlights the relevance of organisms displaying alternative inheritance of chromosomes to the understanding of forces shaping genome evolution.

evolutionary biology↗