Adaptive selection and reshaping of the genetic structure of an immune
gene in invasive Lithobates catesbeianus
Abstract
When alien species enter new environments, they face new challenges.
They encounter new predators, parasites, or pathogenic bacteria, which
leads to the rapid evolution of invasive species to adapt to new
habitats, where immune-related genes play a significant role. Lithobates
catesbeianus is one of the worst invasive species in the world; it
rapidly spread worldwide in the 19th century and invaded China in the
1950s. We predicted the possible transmission routes of bullfrogs in
China through microsatellite loci and clustered the populations at
different points. We studied the adaptive selection and drift reshaping
of the genetic structure of an immune genetic major histocompatibility
complex (MHC) in invasive bullfrogs in 23 Chinese invasive populations
(13 island and 10 mainland sites) and two American populations (Kansas
and California). The Chinese bullfrog populations were divided into 6
clusters by microsatellite structure, and the MHC diversity in each
cluster was different. The genetic diversity of both microsatellite and
MHC genes decreased due to the bottleneck effect and the rate of
diversity loss at functional and neutral loci, and there was no
significant difference. We found that two MHC alleles were endemic in
Chinese populations, which corresponded to distinct functional
supertypes. We also analyzed the impact of environmental factors and
island effects on the diversity of MHC genes. These results indicate
that rapid evolution plays an important role in maintaining functionally
important MHC variation during the bullfrog invasion process and provide
evidence that low genetic diversity can result in successful invasion.