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Population genomics of seal lice provides insights into the postglacial history of northern European seals
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  • Ludmila Sromek,
  • Kevin Johnson,
  • Mervi Kunnasranta,
  • Eeva Ylinen,
  • Stephany Virrueta Herrera,
  • Elena Andrievskaya,
  • Vyacheslav Alexeev,
  • Olga Rusinek,
  • Aqqalu Rosing-Asvid,
  • Tommi Nyman
Ludmila Sromek
Uniwersytet Gdanski
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Kevin Johnson
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
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Mervi Kunnasranta
University of Eastern Finland
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Eeva Ylinen
University of Eastern Finland
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Stephany Virrueta Herrera
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Elena Andrievskaya
The Baltic Ringed Seal Foundation
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Vyacheslav Alexeev
The Baltic Ringed Seal Foundation
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Olga Rusinek
Baikal Museum of the Irkutsk Scientific Center of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences
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Aqqalu Rosing-Asvid
Greenland Institute of Natural Resources
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Tommi Nyman
Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research

Corresponding Author:tommi.nyman@nibio.no

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Abstract

Genetic analyses of host-specific parasites can elucidate the evolutionary histories and biological features of their hosts. Here, we used population-genomic analyses of ectoparasitic seal lice (Echinophthirius horridus) to shed light on the postglacial history of seals in the Arctic Ocean and the Baltic Sea region. One key question was the enigmatic origin of relict landlocked ringed seal populations in lakes Saimaa and Ladoga in northern Europe. We found that that lice of four postglacially diverged subspecies of the ringed seal (Pusa hispida) and Baltic gray seal (Halichoerus grypus), like their hosts, form genetically differentiated entities. Using coalescent-based demographic inference, we show that the sequence of divergences of the louse populations is consistent with the geological history of lake formation. In addition, local effective population sizes of the lice are generally proportional to the census sizes of their respective seal host populations. Genome-based reconstructions of long-term effective population sizes revealed clear differences among louse populations associated with gray vs. ringed seals, with apparent links to Pleistocene and Holocene climatic variation as well as to the isolation histories of ringed seal subspecies. Interestingly, our analyses also revealed ancient gene flow between the lice of Baltic gray and ringed seals, suggesting that the distributions of Baltic seals overlapped to a greater extent in the past than is the case today. Taken together, our results demonstrate how genomic information from specialized parasites with higher mutation and substitution rates than their hosts can potentially illuminate finer scale population genetic patterns than similar data from their hosts.
Submitted to Molecular Ecology
27 Apr 2024Assigned to Editor
27 Apr 2024Submission Checks Completed
09 Jun 2024Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
11 Jul 20241st Revision Received
12 Jul 2024Submission Checks Completed
12 Jul 2024Assigned to Editor
12 Jul 2024Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
15 Jul 2024Editorial Decision: Revise Minor
06 Aug 20242nd Revision Received
07 Aug 2024Submission Checks Completed
07 Aug 2024Assigned to Editor
07 Aug 2024Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
27 Aug 2024Editorial Decision: Accept