2025/11/04 by Jessica A. Rhodes, Mark C. Bitter, Skyler Berardi +3 · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Adaptation (eye) #Allele #Animal Behavior and Reproduction #Epistasis #Evolution and Genetic Dynamics #Evolutionary dynamics #Genetic architecture #Genetic diversity and population structure #Human evolutionary genetics #Quantitative trait locus #Trait
paper · pdf · doi:10.1101/2025.11.04.686622
published in bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
openalex publication_date 2025/11/04 · openalex created_date 2025/11/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/14
across seven generations of evolution in both field mesocosms exposed to natural environmental fluctuations, as well as mesocosms housed in a controlled, lab-based setting. At two time points throughout trait evolution, we conducted a high-powered, tail-based mapping of pigmentation, producing a well-resolved genotype-phenotype map that reaffirms canonical pigmentation genes and unveils novel loci. While we were able to use this map to correctly infer the direction of pigmentation evolution in both the field and lab mesocosms, the particular loci responding to selection, and thus architecture of adaptation itself, were largely unpredictable. We suggest this unpredictability to be a result of pleiotropic constraint, which was more pronounced in the field, relative to the lab-based, environment. Finally, we quantified a striking stability of the genotype-phenotype map across genetically diverged populations, demonstrating that shifting epistatic landscapes associated with the evolutionary process itself do not alter trait architecture and preclude phenotypic prediction, provided the mapping is sufficiently powered. In concert our results highlight both the promise and limitations of genomic prediction, and exemplify the challenges of applying lab-based studies of complex traits to their evolutionary dynamics in the wild.