Stickleback Genomes Shining Bright Light on Evolution

Researchers now know many of the genomic regions that allowed an ocean-dwelling fish to adapt to fresh water in several independently evolved populations. The discovery involved threespine stickleback fish taken from three land-locked freshwater Alaskan lakes and two ocean populations. They found that all of the fish were closely related in most of their genomes, but with differences in very specific regions.

"We combined two technologies to develop sequence RAD (restricted-site associated DNA) tags," said William A. Cresko, professor of biology and member of the UO's Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. "With this, we can quickly look across entire genomes and ask new questions: Can we find genomic regions that were altered due to natural selection? And then compare this with a completely evolved population? How many regions are the same, how many are different?"

Image credit: William A. Cresko, University of Oregon