Background: Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are important in the food industry for the production of fermented food products and in human health as commensals in the gut. However, the phylogenetic relationships among LAB species remain under intensive debate owing to disagreements among different data sets. Results: We performed a phylogenetic analysis of LAB species based on 232 genes from 28 LAB genome sequences. Regardless of the tree-building methods used, combined analyses yielded an identical, well-resolved tree topology with strong supports for all nodes. The LAB species examined were divided into two groups. Group 1 included families Enterococcaceae and Streptococcaceae. Group 2 included families Lactobacillaceae and Leuconostocaceae. Within Group 2, the LAB species were divided into two clades. One clade comprised of the acidophilus complex of genus Lactobacillus and two other species, Lb. sakei and Lb. casei. In the acidophilus complex, Lb. delbrueckii separated first, while Lb. acidophilus/Lb. helveticus and Lb. gasseri/Lb. johnsonii were clustered into a sister group. The other clade within Group 2 consisted of the salivarius subgroup, including five species, Lb. salivarius, Lb. plantarum, Lb. brevis, Lb. reuteri, Lb. fermentum, and the genera Pediococcus, Oenococcus, and Leuconostoc. In this clade, Lb. salivarius was positioned most basally, followed by two clusters, one corresponding to Lb. plantarum/Lb. brevis pair and Pediococcus, and the other including Oenococcus/Leuconostoc pair and Lb. reuteri/Lb. fermentum pair. In addition, phylogenetic utility of the 232 genes was analyzed to identify those that may be more useful than others. The genes identified as useful were related to translation and ribosomal structure and biogenesis (TRSB), and a three-gene set comprising genes encoding ultra-violet resistance protein B (uvrB), DNA polymerase III (polC) and penicillin binding protein 2B (pbpB). Conclusions: Our phylogenomic analyses provide important insights into the evolution and diversification of LAB species, and also revealed the phylogenetic utility of several genes. We infer that the occurrence of multiple, independent adaptation events in LAB species, have resulted in their occupation of various habitats. Further analyses of more genes from additional, representative LAB species are needed to reveal the molecular mechanisms underlying adaptation of LAB species to various environmental niches.

Comparing genomes of closely related genotypes from populations with distinct demographic histories can help reveal the impact of effective population size on genome evolution. For this purpose, we present a high quality genome assembly of Daphnia pulex (PA42), and compare this with the first sequenced genome of this species (TCO), which was derived from an isolate from a population with >90% reduction in nucleotide diversity. PA42 has numerous similarities to TCO at the gene level, with an average amino acid sequence identity of 98.8 and >60% of orthologous proteins identical. Nonetheless, there is a highly elevated number of genes in the TCO genome annotation, with ∼7000 excess genes appearing to be false positives. This view is supported by the high GC content, lack of introns, and short length of these suspicious gene annotations. Consistent with the view that reduced effective population size can facilitate the accumulation of slightly deleterious genomic features, we observe more proliferation of transposable elements (TEs) and a higher frequency of gained introns in the TCO genome.

Despite evolutionary biology’s obsession with natural selection, few studies have evaluated multigenerational series of patterns of selection on a genome-wide scale in natural populations. Here, we report on a 10-y population-genomic survey of the microcrustacean Daphnia pulex. The genome sequences of > 800 isolates provide insights into patterns of selection that cannot be obtained from long-term molecular-evolution studies, including the following: the pervasiveness of near quasi-neutrality across the genome (mean net selection coefficients near zero, but with significant temporal variance about the mean, and little evidence of positive covariance of selection across time intervals); the preponderance of weak positive selection operating on minor alleles; and a genome-wide distribution of numerous small linkage islands of observable selection influencing levels of nucleotide diversity. These results suggest that interannual fluctuating selection is a major determinant of standing levels of variation in natural populations, challenge the conventional paradigm for interpreting patterns of nucleotide diversity and divergence, and motivate the need for the further development of theoretical expressions for the interpretation of population-genomic data.

Sex determination (SD) involves mechanisms that determine whether an individual will develop into a male, female, or in rare cases, hermaphrodite. Crustaceans harbor extremely diverse SD systems, including hermaphroditism, environmental sex determination (ESD), genetic sex determination (GSD), and cytoplasmic sex determination (e.g., Wolbachia controlled SD systems). Such diversity lays the groundwork for researching the evolution of SD in crustaceans, i.e., transitions among different SD systems. However, most previous research has focused on understanding the mechanism of SD within a single lineage or species, overlooking the transition across different SD systems. To help bridge this gap, we summarize the understanding of SD in various clades of crustaceans, and discuss how different SD systems might evolve from one another. Furthermore, we review the genetic basis for transitions between different SD systems (i.e., Dmrt genes) and propose the microcrustacean Daphnia (clade Branchiopoda) as a model to study the transition from ESD to GSD.

Although obligately asexual lineages are thought to experience selective disadvantages associated with reduced efficiency of fixing beneficial mutations and purging deleterious mutations, such lineages are phylogenetically and geographically widespread. However, despite several genome-wide association studies, little is known about the genetic elements underlying the origin of obligate asexuality and how they spread. Because many obligately asexual lineages have hybrid origins, it has been suggested that asexuality is caused by the unbalanced expression of alleles from the hybridizing species. Here, we investigate this idea by identifying genes with allele-specific expression (ASE) in a Daphnia pulex population, in which obligate parthenogens (OP) and cyclical parthenogens (CP) coexist, with the OP clones having been originally derived from hybridization between CP D. pulex and its sister species, Daphnia pulicaria. OP D. pulex have significantly more ASE genes (ASEGs) than do CP D. pulex. Whole-genomic comparison of OP and CP clones revealed ∼15,000 OP-specific markers and 42 consistent ASEGs enriched in marker-defined regions. Ten of the 42 ASEGs have alleles coding for different protein sequences, suggesting functional differences between the products of the two parental alleles. At least three of these ten genes appear to be directly involved in meiosis-related processes, for example, RanBP2 can cause abnormal chromosome segregation in anaphase I, and the presence of Wee1 in immature oocytes leads to failure to enter meiosis II. These results provide a guide for future molecular resolution of the genetic basis of the transition to ameiotic parthenogenesis.

Genetic variants of mitochondrial DNA at the individual (heteroplasmy) and population (polymorphism) levels provide insight into their roles in multiple cellular and evolutionary processes. However, owing to the paucity of genome-wide data at the within-individual and population levels, the broad patterns of these two forms of variation remain poorly understood. Here, we analyze 1,804 complete mitochondrial genome sequences from Daphnia pulex, Daphnia pulicaria, and Daphnia obtusa. Extensive heteroplasmy is observed in D. obtusa, where the high level of intraclonal divergence must have resulted from a biparental-inheritance event, and recombination in the mitochondrial genome is apparent, although perhaps not widespread. Global samples of D. pulex reveal remarkably low mitochondrial effective population sizes, <3% of those for the nuclear genome. In addition, levels of population diversity in mitochondrial and nuclear genomes are uncorrelated across populations, suggesting an idiosyncratic evolutionary history of mitochondria in D. pulex. These population-genetic features appear to be a consequence of background selection associated with highly deleterious mutations arising in the strongly linked mitochondrial genome, which is consistent with polymorphism and divergence data suggesting a predominance of strong purifying selection. Nonetheless, the fixation of mildly deleterious mutations in the mitochondrial genome also appears to be driving positive selection on genes encoded in the nuclear genome whose products are deployed in the mitochondrion.