Science. Some fear the arrival of Australian eels by sea – Publimetro México
Madrid, 14 (European press)
The ancestors of some of Australia’s most venomous snakes came by sea rather than land, which is the dispersal route of most other Australian reptiles.
This is indicated in an article published in Genes by researchers from the University of Adelaide, who analyzed the genomes of two Australian eelpids (forward-tusked snakes), a tiger snake and a brown snake, and compared them with marine and semi-marine ones. The wondrous sea snakes and the Asian wonders.
They concluded that the ancestors of all Australian widows had accumulated genes for self-reproduction and mobilization (jumping genes) that were not present in their terrestrial relatives but came from another source.
Corresponding author Professor David Adelson, from the University of Adelaide’s School of Biological Sciences, said in a statement: “While we know that all marine and semi-marine snakes are descended from a common Australian terrestrial ancestor, the origin of the recalcitrant Australians has been debated for some time.
Some believe that their ancestors traveled over land, while others believe that their marine or semi-marine ancestors swam here. In our research, we found a number of genes that were present in the ancestors of all Australians, but cannot be traced back to snake ancestors; Alternatively, they can be traced back to similar transferable genetic sequences found in marine life, including fish, sea jerks, sea urchins, bivalves, and turtles.
This indicates that the marine environment passed on the new genetic material to the snakes and provides further support for the argument that the first Australian drifters swam to our shores. They must have previously obtained the new genetic material during the ancestral period in which they adapted to the marine environment. life.”
The researchers identified 14 distinct events of transferring new genetic material from other marine organisms, with eight genes uniquely present in the genomes of marine and semi-marine snakes. In the case of the semi-marine snake genome, acquired genes accounted for between 8 and 12 percent of the total genome sequence.
“This means that we can unequivocally determine that the main genetic differences between terrestrial and marine/semi-marine snakes were the result of migration to a marine environment,” Professor Adelson said.
“This is the first time that jumping genes have been used to confirm the evolutionary history of any animal species, and this research has shown conclusively that the common ancestor of all Australian quirks adapted to the marine environment. It may also have facilitated the subsequent migration of sea snakes from land to sea.”
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