The authors of the study presume that these genes contribute to the process where the baby fish leave the male's brood pouch.Īccording to this study in Nature, evolution does not only act through changing major roles of genes, but it also influences regulatory elements (genetic switches) during evolution. Once the embryo is hatched, the additional genes are activated. These genes presumably regulate the pregnancy, for example, by coordinating the embryos' hatching within the brood pouch of the male. In the seahorse, this is probably how a part of the newly created gene makes male pregnancy possible. When a gene is duplicated, the copy can fulfil an entirely new function. In addition to gene losses, gene duplications during the evolution of the seahorse were also detected. Therefore, the olfactory sense seems to only play a minor role.
This same genetic forfeiture applies to genes that contribute to the sense of smell: seahorses hunt visually and have very good sight, using their eyes that can move independently of each other.
Instead of chewing its prey, it simply sucks it in with the enormous negative pressure that it can generate in its long snout. The seahorse no longer needs teeth due to the special way in which it consumes its food. This is how the researchers around evolutionary biologist Professor Axel Meyer were able to identify the genetic basis for the disappearance of the seahorse's teeth: several genes that are present in many fish as well humans and contribute to the development of teeth, were lost in seahorses. The questions underlying genome sequencing of how diversity emerges and what its genetic basis is, can be superbly answered through the example of the seahorse because numerous unique features evolved in the seahorse within a short time. The results will be published as the cover story in Nature on 15 December 2016.
They obtained new molecular evolutionary results that are relevant for biodiversity research: the loss and duplication of genes as well as the loss of regulative elements in its genome have both contributed to the rapid evolution of the seahorse. The genome project, comprising six evolutionary biologists from Professor Axel Meyer's research team from Konstanz and researchers from China and Singapore, sequenced and analyzed the genome of the tiger tail seahorse.
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