The remarkably slow evolution of gars, freshwater fish species found in Minnesota lakes and rivers as well as North and Central America, could provide new insights for modern human health.
Gars are from a lineage of fishes that is over 150 million years old. Research recently published in Evolution, uncovers evidence of a biological mechanism for living fossils like gars, those organisms alive today that closely resemble their fossil ancestors.
“We have a lot to learn from animals often, and unfairly, considered trash fish,” said Solomon David, an assistant professor in CFANS and principal investigator of GarLab, which focuses on the ecology and conservation of native rough fish.
Led by Yale University, the team includes researchers from the University of Minnesota, University at Buffalo, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and the University of Southern Mississippi.
The researchers compared rates of molecular evolution in gars to those of over 470 vertebrate species, many of them often considered living fossils, including crocodiles, turtles, sharks and coelacanths.
The team speculates that gars have an unusually efficient DNA repair mechanism, correcting alterations to DNA more efficiently than most other vertebrate groups. This mechanism may be responsible for low species diversity, hybridization across long-diverged genera, and overall slow rates of evolution.
Identifying the mechanism for this strong DNA repair could also have implications for medical research and human health.
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