DOI: 10.5061/dryad.6mr8n
title: Data from: Adaptive phenotypic response to climate enabled by epigenetics in a K-strategy species, the fish Leucoraja ocellata (Rajidae)

description: The relative importance of genetic versus epigenetic changes in adaptive
 evolution is a hotly debated topic, with studies showing that some species
 appear to be able to adapt rapidly without significant genetic change.
 Epigenetic mechanisms may be particularly important for the evolutionary
 potential of species with long maturation times and low reproductive
 potential (‘K-strategists’), particularly when faced with rapidly changing
 environmental conditions. Here we study the transcriptome of two
 populations of the winter skate (Leucoraja ocellata), a typical
 ‘K-strategist’, in Atlantic Canada; an endemic population in the southern
 Gulf of St Lawrence and a large population on the Scotian Shelf. The
 endemic population has been able to adapt to a 10°C higher water
 temperature over short evolutionary time (7000 years), dramatically
 reducing its body size (by 45%) significantly below the minimum maturation
 size of Scotian Shelf and other populations of winter skate, as well as
 exhibiting other adaptations in life history and physiology. We
 demonstrate that the adaptive response to selection has an epigenetic
 basis, cataloguing 3653 changes in gene expression that may have enabled
 this species to rapidly respond to the novel environment. We argue that
 the epigenetic augmentation of species evolutionary potential (its
 regulation though gene expression) can enable K-strategists to survive and
 adapt to different environments, and this mechanism may be particularly
 important for the persistence of sharks, skates and rays in the light of
 future climate change.
description: Southern Gulf of St.
 Lawrence winter skate transcriptomeSouthern Gulf of St.
 Lawrence winter skate transcriptome. Assembled unannotated contigs from
 454 sequencing reads.sGSL
 Winter_Skate_transcriptome.faScotian Shelf Winter
 Skate transcriptomeScotian Shelf Winter
 Skate transcriptome. Assembled unannotated contigs from 454 sequencing
 readsSS_Winter_Skate_transcriptome.faScotian Shelf Winter Skate assembled consensus transcriptome contigsScotian Shelf Winter Skate assembled consensus transcriptome contigs from 454 sequencesSouthern Gulf of St. Lawrence Winter Skate consesnus assembled transcriptome contigsSouthern Gulf of St. Lawrence Winter Skate consesnus assembled transcriptome contigs from 454 sequencingScotian_Shelf_Winter Skate_Longest_ORFScotian_Shelf_Winter Skate_Longest_ORF nucleotide contigs from 454 sequence dataScotian_Shelf_Winter Skate_Longest_ORF_TranslatedScotian_Shelf_Winter Skate_Longest_ORF_Translated from 454 sequence datasGSL_Winter Skate_Longest_ORFSouthern Gulf of St. Lawrence_Winter Skate_Longest_ORF nucleotide contigs from 454 sequence datasGSL_Winter Skate_Longest_ORF_TranslatedsGSL_Winter Skate_Longest_ORF_Translated contigs from 454 sequencing dataScotial Shelf Winter Skate transcriptome Consensus AnnotationScotial Shelf Winter Skate transcriptome Consensus Annotation in a genebank-like formatsGSL Winter Skate transcriptome Consensus AnnotationSouthern Gulf of St. Lawrence Winter Skate transcriptome Consensus Annotation in a Genbank-like formatsGSL Winter Skate_Up-regulated_GO-TermssGSL Winter Skate Gene Ontogeny Terms for up-regulated genes &gt;1 Fold Change in RPKMsGSL Winter Skate_Down-regulated_GO-TermssGSL Winter Skate Gene Ontogeny Terms for Down-regulated genes &lt;-1 Fold Change in RPKMScotian Shelf Winter Skate_Down-regulated_GO-TermsScotian Shelf Winter Skate_Down-regulated_Geno Ontology-Terms &lt;-1 fold change in sequencing RPKMScotian Shelf Winter Skate_UP-regulated_GO-TermsScotian Shelf Winter Skate_Down-regulated_Geno Ontology-Terms &gt;1 fold change in sequencing RPKM