Publications by authors named "Weizhao Yang"

Assessing the threat status of species in response to global change is critical for biodiversity monitoring and conservation efforts. However, current frameworks, even the IUCN Red List, often neglect critical factors such as genetic diversity and the impacts of climate and land-use changes, hindering effective conservation planning. To address these limitations, we developed an enhanced extinction risk assessment framework using lizards as a model.

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Article Synopsis
  • Divergence between closely related organisms, like the Guinan toad-headed lizards found in the Mugetan Desert, can occur without geographic barriers, raising questions about how selection, gene flow, and recombination facilitate this process.
  • Researchers sampled 191 lizard specimens and performed whole genome sequencing, finding continuous gene flow across the desert despite noticeable color differences between populations.
  • They identified 273 highly diverged regions in the genome that showed strong selection, influencing key genes related to color variation and potentially contributing to the evolutionary divergence in these lizards.
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Animal coloration offers a unique opportunity to explore the evolutionary mechanisms underlying phenotypic diversity. Conspicuous coloration caused by pigments plays a crucial role in social signaling across multiple species by conveying information about individual quality, social ranks, or reproductive condition. Nevertheless, most previous studies have focused predominantly on colors produced by the exogenous pigments-carotenoids.

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The joint expression of particular colors, morphologies, and behaviors is a common feature of adaptation, but the genetic basis for such "phenotypic syndromes" remains poorly understood. Here, we identified a complex genetic architecture associated with a sexually selected syndrome in common wall lizards, by capitalizing on the adaptive introgression of coloration and morphology into a distantly related lineage. Consistent with the hypothesis that the evolution of phenotypic syndromes in vertebrates is facilitated by developmental linkage through neural crest cells, most of the genes associated with the syndrome are involved in neural crest cell regulation.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates how color variation related to sex affects survival and reproduction in the Guinan population of toad-headed lizards, revealing a complex genetic basis for this dimorphism.
  • - Findings indicate that male red coloration is linked to genes on chromosome 14, while blue coloration in females may involve the MAP7 gene; variations in pigment levels also contribute to these traits.
  • - The research suggests that natural selection and mating preferences may reinforce these color differences, helping to explain their evolutionary significance in the lizards' desert habitat.
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Confused geographical structure of a population and mitonuclear discordance are shaped by a combination of rapid changes in population demographics and shifts in ecology. In this study, we generated a time-calibrated phylogeny of , an endemic Xizang alpine toad occurring in mountain streams on the Qinghai-Xizang (Tibet) Plateau (QTP). Based on three mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genes, eight clades were assigned to three deeply divergent lineages.

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Species distributed across climatic gradients will typically experience spatial variation in selection, but gene flow can prevent such selection from causing population genetic differentiation and local adaptation. Here, we studied genomic variation of 415 individuals across 34 populations of the common wall lizard (Podarcis muralis) in central Italy. This species is highly abundant throughout this region and populations belong to a single genetic lineage, yet there is extensive phenotypic variation across climatic regimes.

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The Mediterranean Basin has experienced extensive change in geology and climate over the past six million years. Yet, the relative importance of key geological events for the distribution and genetic structure of the Mediterranean fauna remains poorly understood. Here, we use population genomic and phylogenomic analyses to establish the evolutionary history and genetic structure of common wall lizards (Podarcis muralis).

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AbstractClimate can exert an effect on the strength of sexual selection, but empirical evidence is limited. Here, we tested whether climate predicts the geographic distribution and introgressive spread of sexually selected male color ornamentation across 114 populations of the common wall lizard, . Coloration was highly structured across the landscape and did not reflect genetic differentiation.

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The Mediterranean basin is a hotspot of biodiversity, fuelled by climatic oscillation and geological change over the past 20 million years. Wall lizards of the genus Podarcis are among the most abundant, diverse, and conspicuous Mediterranean fauna. Here, we unravel the remarkably entangled evolutionary history of wall lizards by sequencing genomes of 34 major lineages covering 26 species.

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Hybrid zones provide insights into the evolution of reproductive isolation. Sexual selection can contribute to the evolution of reproductive barriers, but it remains poorly understood how sexual traits impact gene flow in secondary contact. Here, we show that a recently evolved suite of sexual traits that function in male-male competition mediates gene flow between two lineages of wall lizards (Podarcis muralis).

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Strongly selected characters can be transferred from one lineage to another with limited genetic exchange, resulting in asymmetric introgression and a mosaic genome in the receiving population. However, systems are rarely sufficiently well studied to link the pattern of introgression to its underlying process. Male common wall lizards in western Italy exhibit exaggeration of a suite of sexually selected characters that make them outcompete males from a distantly related lineage that lack these characters.

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Background: Genome-wide investigation of molecular mechanisms for high-altitude adaptation has attracted great attention in the last few years. In order to understand the contribution of gene expression level variations to high-altitude adaptation in Asiatic toads (Bufo gargarizans), we implemented a reciprocal transplant experiment between low- and high-altitude sites and sequenced 12 transcriptomes from brain, heart, and liver tissues.

Results: A large number of genes with expression differences (DEGs) between high- and low-altitude individuals (193 fixed and 844 plastic) were identified, and the majority of them were tissue specific.

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We report a strong pattern of molecular-level convergent/parallel evolution of the MYBPC2 gene. Three high-elevation amphibian species, Bufo gargarizans minshanicus, Nanorana pleskei, Rana kukunoris, revealed remarkable numbers of convergent and parallel amino acid substitutions. On the MYBPC2 gene tree of eleven anurans, the three distantly related species formed a strongly supported clade that was away from their respective relatives.

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Background: High-altitude adaptation provides an excellent system for studying how organisms cope with multiple environmental stressors and interacting genetic modifications. To explore the genetic basis of high-altitude adaptation in poikilothermic animals, we acquired transcriptome sequences from a high-altitude population and a low-altitude population of the Asiatic toad (Bufo gargarizans). Transcriptome data from another high-altitude amphibian, Rana kukunoris and its low-altitude relative R.

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We investigated the population genetic structure of Asiatic toads (Bufo gargarizans) from the mountains of western China to determine their species status, using genotypic data of ten microsatellite DNA loci and DNA sequences from one mitochondrial gene. A total of 197 samples from eight sites were examined, which cover a large range of elevations (559-3457 m), as well as all three traditionally defined species (or subspecies). AMOVA did not reveal any particularly large among-groups structure, whether the sites were grouped by drainage, elevation, region, or species (subspecies).

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Human apolipoprotein E4 (APOE4) is a major risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and can greatly increase the morbidity. In this work, an ultrasensitive sandwich-type electrochemical immunosensor for the quantitative detection of APOE4 was designed based on fractal gold (FracAu) nanostructures and enzyme amplification. The FracAu nanostructures were directly electrodeposited by hydrogen tetrachloroaurate (HAuCl4) on polyelectrolytes modified indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode.

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High elevation adaptation offers an excellent study system to understand the genetic basis of adaptive evolution. We acquired transcriptome sequences of two closely related lizards, Phrynocephalus przewalskii from low elevations and P. vlangalii from high elevations.

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The phylogenetic position of turtles within the vertebrate tree of life remains controversial. Conflicting conclusions from different studies are likely a consequence of systematic error in the tree construction process, rather than random error from small amounts of data. Using genomic data, we evaluate the phylogenetic position of turtles with both conventional concatenated data analysis and a "genes as characters" approach.

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Transcriptome profiles provide a practical and inexpensive alternative to explore genomic data in non-model organisms, particularly in amphibians where the genomes are very large and complex. The odorous frog Odorranamargaretae (Anura: Ranidae) is a dominant species in the mountain stream ecosystem of western China. Limited knowledge of its genetic background has hindered research on this species, despite its importance in the ecosystem and as biological resources.

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Sex-biased dispersal has profound impacts on a species' biology and several factors have been attributed to its evolution, including mating system, inbreeding avoidance, and social complexity. Sex-biased dispersal and its potential link to individual social interactions were examined in the Qinghai toad-headed agamid (Phrynocephalus vlangalii). We first determined the pattern of sex-biased dispersal using population genetic methods.

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Background: Understanding how organisms adapt to high-elevation environments at a genome scale provides novel insights into the process of adaptive evolution. Previous studies have mainly focused on endothermic organisms, while poikilothermic species may have evolved different mechanisms to cope with high-elevation environments. In this context, we sequenced transcriptomes of a pair of closely related anuran species, Rana chensinensis and R.

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