How might epigenetics contribute to ecological speciation？

作     者：Gilbert SMITH Michael G. RITCHIE 

作者机构：Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of California Irvine California USA School of Biology University of St Andrews St Andews Fife KY16 9TH Scotland UK 

出 版 物：《Current Zoology》 (动物学报（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2013年第59卷第5期

页      面：686-696页

核心收录：

学科分类：0710[理学-生物学] 08[工学] 081302[工学-建筑设计及其理论] 0905[农学-畜牧学] 0906[农学-兽医学] 0813[工学-建筑学] 0836[工学-生物工程] 

主　　题：生态形态 表观遗传 表型可塑性 学会 遗传标记 环境感应 生殖隔离 生命周期 

摘      要：Speciation research has seen a renewed interest in ecological speciation, which emphasises divergent ecological selection leading to the evolution of reproductive isolation. Selection from divergent ecologies means that phenotypic plasticity can play an important role in ecological speciation. Phenotypic plasticity involves the induction of phenotypes over the lifetime of an organism and emerging evidence suggests that epigenetic marks such as cytosine and protein (histone) modifications might regulate such environmental induction. Epigenetic marks play a wide role in a variety of processes including development, sex differentiation and allocation, sexual conflict, regulation of transposable elements and phenotypic plasticity. Here we describe recent studies that investigate epigenetic mechanisms in a variety of contexts. There is mounting evidence for environmentally induced epigenetic variation and for the stable inheritance of epigenetic marks between generations. Thus, epigenetically-based phenotypic plasticity may play a role in adaptation and ecological speciation. However, there is less evidence for the inheritance of induced epigenetic variation across multiple generations in animals. Currently few studies of ecological speciation incorporate the potential for the involvement of epigenetically-based induction of phenotypes, and we argue that this is an important omission.