Amount and Sources of Population Variability in the Metabolome of a Crayfish Species
Abstract
My study investigated the amount of variation associated with region and stream scales in the metabolomes of northern crayfish (Faxonius virilis), collected from seven streams distributed across three ecoregions in Western Canada. Additionally, my study measured metabolomes of crayfish from the same seven streams after experiencing a common laboratory environment to separate the effects of environmental and genetic variation. Region and stream scales were found to be poor predictors of metabolomic variation among crayfish sampled in the field but exhibited increased predictive ability among crayfish exposed to the common environment, indicating crayfish from separate populations responded differently to the common environment. Furthermore, variation among the crayfish metabolomes did not decrease in the common environment, indicating the important influence of genetic variation. These findings show unstressed populations of the northern crayfish display similar metabolomes despite experiencing differing environmental conditions. Reference conditions derived for metabolomic-based bioassessment may thus be applicable across regions.