Ecology and Evolution · 10 authors, 7 centres
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This comparative genomic study identified conserved and accelerated genomic regions in eight Anolis lizard species, finding that noncoding regions, especially intergenic areas, show strong evolutionary conservation and acceleration, suggesting they contain functional elements important for adapting to different thermal habitats like hot-open and cool-shaded environments.
The analysis found that conserved elements are enriched in coding sequences but that over 80% of conserved elements are in noncoding regions, particularly intergenic regions, which may contain regulatory sequences. Accelerated regions had a higher proportion of noncoding and intergenic sequences compared to conserved elements. Genes commonly accelerated in lineages inhabiting similar thermal habitats were involved in processes like DNA repair, circadian rhythms, vision, lipid metabolism, and behavior. The study notes limitations including that only 52.8% of the reference genome was covered by the alignment and that the window-based acceleration detection method has a specific scope. The findings suggest these identified genomic regions are candidate areas for thermal adaptation in lizards.
