Data from: Visual pigment chromophore usage in Nicaraguan Midas cichlids: Phenotypic plasticity and genetic assimilation of cyp27c1 expression

Code and Data associated with "Visual pigment chromophore usage in Nicaraguan Midas cichlids: Phenotypic plasticity and genetic assimilation of cyp27c1 expression"

Abstract

The wide-ranging photic conditions found across aquatic habitats may act as selective pressures potentially driving rapid evolution and diversity in the visual system of teleost fishes. Fine-tuning of visual sensitivities in many fish species relies on regulating the two components of visual pigments, the opsin protein and the chromophore. Many studies have focused on opsin gene expression or opsin sequence divergence in fishes inhabiting contrasting habitats. However, variation in chromophore usage across photic habitats has received less attention. Species from the Nicaraguan Midas cichlid complex, Amphilophus cf citrinellus [Günther 1864], have independently colonized seven isolated crater lakes of varying photic conditions resulting in repeated examples of small adaptive radiations. Here, we investigate variation in cyp27c1, the main enzyme involved in chromophore exchange, in response to photic environments in the wild, we measure its genetic component using laboratory-reared fish and test the effect of different rearing light conditions on cyp27c1 expression. We found that photic environments significantly predict variation in cyp27c1 expression in wild populations and that this variation seems to be genetically assimilated in two populations. We found that light-induced cyp27c1 expression is variable across populations (i.e., genotype-by-environment interactions) and correlated with local photic conditions thus highlighting cyp27c1 as a key factor of visual ecology in cichlid fishes.

Keywords: cyp27c1 gene expression, sensory ecology, visual plasticity, Neotropical cichlids