ArticlePLoS genetics2015
Convergent Evolution of Hemoglobin Function in High-Altitude Andean Waterfowl Involves Limited Parallelism at the Molecular Sequence Level.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 69 papers.
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69 citing papers in PubMed, 178 citations in OpenAlex.
- Phylogenomic analysis of vocal fold length evolution reveals links between vocal and auditory systems in terrestrial mammals.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- The cardiac pacemakers: A paradigm of robustness in evolutionary biology.The Journal of physiology · 2026Review
- The genetic foundations of convergent traits.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2026Review
- Detecting Convergence of Amino Acid Physicochemical Properties Underlying the Organismal Adaptive Convergent Evolution.Molecular ecology resources · 2025Article
- Language models reveal a complex sequence basis for adaptive convergent evolution of protein functions.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Global Environmental Factors Impact the Evolution of Adult Hemoglobins in Squamata Reptiles (Lizards and Snakes) and Terrestrial Turtles.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Evolutionary balance between genomic conservation and coral reef adaptation in the yellow boxfish (Zoological research · 2025Article
- Gas exchange, oxygen transport and metabolism in high-altitude waterfowl.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- The unique allosteric property of crocodilian haemoglobin elucidated by cryo-EM.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Shifts in evolutionary lability underlie independent gains and losses of root-nodule symbiosis in a single clade of plants.Nature communications · 2024Article
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- WGCCRR: a web-based tool for genome-wide screening of convergent indels and substitutions of amino acids.Bioinformatics advances · 2024Article
- Genomic Signatures Associated with Transitions to Viviparity in Cyprinodontiformes.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Genomic Variation, Population History, and Long-Term Genetic Adaptation to High Altitudes in Tibetan Partridge (Perdix hodgsoniae).Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Migratory songbirds exhibit seasonal modulation of the oxygen cascade.The Journal of experimental biology · 2023Article
- The evolution of the discrete multirenculate kidney in mammals from ecological and molecular perspectives.Genome biology and evolution · 2023Article
- A Phylogenomic Assessment of Processes Underpinning Convergent Evolution in Open-Habitat Chats.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
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- Altitude acclimatization, hemoglobin-oxygen affinity, and circulatory oxygen transport in hypoxia.Molecular aspects of medicine · 2022Review
- Mutation bias shapes the spectrum of adaptive substitutions.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
9 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
15 authors at 7 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
Abstract
A fundamental question in evolutionary genetics concerns the extent to which adaptive phenotypic convergence is attributable to convergent or parallel changes at the molecular sequence level. Here we report a comparative analysis of hemoglobin (Hb) function in eight phylogenetically replicated pairs of high- and low-altitude waterfowl taxa to test for convergence in the oxygenation properties of Hb, and to assess the extent to which convergence in biochemical phenotype is attributable to repeated amino acid replacements. Functional experiments on native Hb variants and protein engineering experiments based on site-directed mutagenesis revealed the phenotypic effects of specific amino acid replacements that were responsible for convergent increases in Hb-O2 affinity in multiple high-altitude taxa. In six of the eight taxon pairs, high-altitude taxa evolved derived increases in Hb-O2 affinity that were caused by a combination of unique replacements, parallel replacements (involving identical-by-state variants with independent mutational origins in different lineages), and collateral replacements (involving shared, identical-by-descent variants derived via introgressive hybridization). In genome scans of nucleotide differentiation involving high- and low-altitude populations of three separate species, function-altering amino acid polymorphisms in the globin genes emerged as highly significant outliers, providing independent evidence for adaptive divergence in Hb function. The experimental results demonstrate that convergent changes in protein function can occur through multiple historical paths, and can involve multiple possible mutations. Most cases of convergence in Hb function did not involve parallel substitutions and most parallel substitutions did not affect Hb-O2 affinity, indicating that the repeatability of phenotypic evolution does not require parallelism at the molecular level.
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