AI Insight
This study analyzed over 3,000 heritability measurements and 1,800 evolvability measurements across 220 multicellular species to determine how additive genetic variation differs between species. The researchers found substantial variation in evolvability between species, with plants showing significantly higher levels than animals, while heritability differences were more subtle. The study could not identify clear drivers of this variation among factors like mutation rate, population size, or genome characteristics, though statistical power was limited.
Why it matters
Understanding variation in additive genetic variance between species is crucial for predicting how different organisms might respond to environmental changes, including climate change and habitat loss. These findings suggest that plants may have greater adaptive potential than animals, which has implications for conservation strategies and managing biodiversity in changing environments.
by Lillith C. Zijmers, Katie L. Abson, Jarrod D. Hadfield, Adam Eyre-Walker
A population’s ability to adapt is determined by its levels of additive genetic variance (VA), and while it is agreed that most organisms have genetic variation for most traits, the extent to which it varies between species is poorly characterized. Here, we investigate this question by compiling 3,209 and 1,852 estimates of heritability and evolvability (the additive genetic variance divided by the square of the mean), respectively, for a variety of traits from 220 and 172 multicellular eukaryotic species. Using phylogenetic generalized linear mixed models, we find substantial and highly significant interspecific variation in evolvability. Much of the variation is explained by phylogenetic relatedness, with plants in our data having substantially higher evolvability than animals. While heritability also varies between species, the differences are more subtle, and plants are not exceptional. We investigate whether the variation in evolvability and heritability between species is due to variation in the mutation rate, effective population size, genome size, ploidy, and recombination rate, but find little evidence of any factor being important. However, the confidence intervals are large suggesting that we have little power to detect any associations between these factors and our estimates of VA.
Source: Levels of additive genetic variation vary substantially between species