Evidence of Echolocation in the Common Shrew from Molecular Convergence with Other Echolocating Mammals

摘要

Along with sophisticated echolocation found in bats and toothed whales, the common shrew( ) was confirmed to possess echolocation ability based onbehavioral and experimental evidence such as high-frequency twittering and close-rangespatial orientation. However, whether echolocation in the common shrew is convergent withbats and dolphins at the molecular level remains poorly understood. In this study, wegathered the coding region sequences of 11 hearing-related genes from genome data andprevious studies. Convergent evolutionary analyses identified 13 amino acid residues(seven in CDH23, five in OTOF, and one in PRESTIN) under strong convergent evolutionshared among the common shrew and other echolocating mammals (bats and dolphins).Furthermore, a phylogenetic tree was constructed based on the combined amino acid datasetof convergent/parallel substitutions, sites with parallel radical property changes, andsites supporting echolocator-convergence; it supported the converged topology of thesimple echolocator and sophisticated echolocating bats withhigh posterior probability. This study gives evidence at the molecular level that thecommon shrew echolocate and provides novel insights into the convergent evolution betweenthe common shrew and bats and dolphins.