ArticlePLoS biology2011
Ever-young sex chromosomes in European tree frogs.
Article in PLoS biology, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 83 papers.
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Who cites it
83 citing papers in PubMed.
- Genome-Wide Characterization of Sex-Linked Regions in the Sangzhi Horned Toad (Boulenophrys sangzhiensis) Reveals Complex Sex Determination Mechanisms.Molecular ecology resources · 2026Article
- Shared Origin of Y and Z Chromosomes in the Turnover of XY and ZW Systems in the FrogBiomolecules · 2026Article
- A novel sex-associated genomic region in Catostomus fish species.The Journal of heredity · 2025Article
- Identification of Y-chromosome Turnover in Newts Fails to Support a Sex Chromosome Origin for the Triturus Balanced Lethal System.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- An Extension of Muller's Sheltering Hypothesis for the Evolution of Sex Chromosome Gene Content.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Sex-biased expression of sex-linked transcripts in spiny frogs with homomorphic sex chromosomes.BMC genomics · 2025Article
- Extreme heterochiasmy and high rates of sex-reversed recombination result in large yet homomorphic sex chromosomes in the Emei moustache toad.Genome research · 2025Article
- The role of unbalanced segmental duplication in sex chromosome evolution in Australian ridge-tailed goannas.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Endocrine disruption in teleosts and amphibians is mediated by anthropogenic and natural environmental factors: implications for risk assessment.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Review
- Evolutionary History of the Poecilia picta Sex Chromosomes.Genome biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Independent Evolution of Sex Chromosomes and Male Pregnancy-Related Genes in Two Seahorse Species.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Identification of a candidate sex determination gene in Culaea inconstans suggests convergent recruitment of an Amh duplicate in two lineages of stickleback.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2022Article
- Repeated turnovers keep sex chromosomes young in willows.Genome biology · 2022Article
- Heterogeneous Evolution of Sex Chromosomes in the Torrent Frog GenusInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Chromosome-Level Genome Assembly Reveals Dynamic Sex Chromosomes in Neotropical Leaf-Litter Geckos (Sphaerodactylidae: Sphaerodactylus).The Journal of heredity · 2022Article
- Are plant and animal sex chromosomes really all that different?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Review
- Sex-related differences in aging rate are associated with sex chromosome system in amphibians.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2022Article
- Morphometry of two cryptic tree frog species at their hybrid zone reveals neither intermediate nor transgressive morphotypes.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- A dense linkage map for a large repetitive genome: discovery of the sex-determining region in hybridizing fire-bellied toads (Bombina bombina and Bombina variegata).G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2021Article
- Expanding the classical paradigm: what we have learnt from vertebrates about sex chromosome evolution.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
23 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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14 authors.
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Abstract
Non-recombining sex chromosomes are expected to undergo evolutionary decay, ending up genetically degenerated, as has happened in birds and mammals. Why are then sex chromosomes so often homomorphic in cold-blooded vertebrates? One possible explanation is a high rate of turnover events, replacing master sex-determining genes by new ones on other chromosomes. An alternative is that X-Y similarity is maintained by occasional recombination events, occurring in sex-reversed XY females. Based on mitochondrial and nuclear gene sequences, we estimated the divergence times between European tree frogs (Hyla arborea, H. intermedia, and H. molleri) to the upper Miocene, about 5.4-7.1 million years ago. Sibship analyses of microsatellite polymorphisms revealed that all three species have the same pair of sex chromosomes, with complete absence of X-Y recombination in males. Despite this, sequences of sex-linked loci show no divergence between the X and Y chromosomes. In the phylogeny, the X and Y alleles cluster according to species, not in groups of gametologs. We conclude that sex-chromosome homomorphy in these tree frogs does not result from a recent turnover but is maintained over evolutionary timescales by occasional X-Y recombination. Seemingly young sex chromosomes may thus carry old-established sex-determining genes, a result at odds with the view that sex chromosomes necessarily decay until they are replaced. This raises intriguing perspectives regarding the evolutionary dynamics of sexually antagonistic genes and the mechanisms that control X-Y recombination.
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