Karine Van Doninck

University of Namur | FUNDP · Research Unit in Environmental and Evolutionary Biology (URBE)

Asexual taxa are often considered as rare and vowed to long-term extinction, notably because of their reduced ability for rapid genetic changes and potential adaptation. The rate at which they derive from sexual ancestors and their developmental mode however influence genetic variation in asexual populations. Understanding the transition from sexua...

Human activities have an overwhelming impact on the natural environment, leading to a deep biodiversity crisis whose effects range from genes to ecosystems. Here, we analysed the effect of such anthropogenic impacts on bdelloid rotifers (Rotifera Bdelloidea), for whom these effects are poorly understood. We targeted bdelloid rotifers living in lich...

Homologous recombination plays a fundamental role in the evolution of organisms. It serves as a DNA repair mechanism which, in sexual organisms, contributes to genetic diversity through the shuffling of alleles during meiosis. Here we investigate the two functions of homologous recombination in the bdelloid rotifer Adineta vaga, an ancient asexual...

Background The remarkable resistance to ionizing radiation found in anhydrobiotic organisms, such as some bacteria, tardigrades, and bdelloid rotifers has been hypothesized to be incidental to their desiccation resistance. Both stresses produce reactive oxygen species and cause damage to DNA and other macromolecules. However, this hypothesis has on...

Bdelloid rotifers are part of the restricted circle of multicellular animals that can withstand a wide range of genotoxic stresses at any stage of their life cycle. In this study, bdelloid rotifer Adineta vaga is used as a model to decipher the molecular basis of their extreme tolerance. Proteomic analysis shows that a specific DNA ligase, differen...

The study of the biologic effects of space radiation is considered a “hot topic,” with increased interest in the past years. In this chapter, the unique characteristics of the space radiation environment will be covered, from their history, characterization, and biological effects to the research that has been and is being conducted in the field. A...

Previous studies have demonstrated the remarkable resistance of bdelloid rotifers to ionizing radiation, making them an interesting model system for studying radiation effects on living organisms. In this study, we use simulations, instead of direct experimental exposures, to examine whether all bdelloids are affected equally by radiation exposure...

Background The remarkable resistance to ionizing radiation found in anhydrobiotic organisms, such as some bacteria, tardigrades, and bdelloid rotifers has been hypothesized to be incidental to the desiccation resistance. Both stresses produce reactive oxygen species and cause damage to DNA and other macromolecules, including DNA. However, this hypo...

Background Bdelloid rotifers are micro-invertebrates distributed worldwide, from temperate latitudes to the most extreme areas of the planet like Antarctica or the Atacama Desert. They have colonized any habitat where liquid water is temporarily available, including terrestrial environments such as soils, mosses, and lichens, tolerating desiccation...

Aim To date, few studies have examined the phylogenetics of Corbicula clams in their native range and the environmental parameters influencing their distribution, although this could provide great insights into the biological adaptation and invasion dynamics of Corbicula clams. We sought to identify the genetic lineages of native Corbicula clams an...

Rotifers of the class Bdelloidea are microscopic animals notorious for their long-term persistence in the apparent absence of sexual reproduction and meiotic recombination. This evolutionary paradox is often counterbalanced by invoking their ability to repair environmentally induced genome breakage. By studying the dynamics of DNA damage response i...

“Occasional” sexuality occurs when a species combines clonal reproduction and genetic mixing. This strategy is predicted to combine the advantages of both asexuality and sexuality, but its actual consequences on the genetic diversity and species longevity are poorly understood. Androgenesis, a reproductive mode in which the offspring inherits its e...

Bdelloid rotifers are notorious as a speciose ancient clade comprising only asexual lineages. Thanks to their ability to repair highly fragmented DNA, most bdelloid species also withstand complete desiccation and ionizing radiation. Producing a well-assembled reference genome is a critical step to developing an understanding of the effects of long-...

Invasive bivalves continue to spread and negatively impact freshwater ecosystems worldwide. As different metrics for body size and biomass are frequently used within the literature to standardise bivalve‐related ecological impacts (e.g. respiration and filtration rates), the lack of broadly applicable conversion equations currently hinders reliable...

Background Long-read sequencing is revolutionizing genome assembly: as PacBio and Nanopore technologies become more accessible in technicity and in cost, long-read assemblers flourish and are starting to deliver chromosome-level assemblies. However, these long reads are usually error-prone, making the generation of a haploid reference out of a dipl...

The several hundreds of species of bdelloid rotifers are notorious because they represent an ancient clade comprising only asexual lineages. Moreover, most bdelloid species have the ability to withstand complete desiccation and high doses of ionizing radiation, being able to repair their DNA after massive genome breakage. To better understand the i...

Third-generation sequencing, also called long-read sequencing, has revolutionized genome assembly: as PacBio and Nanopore technologies have become more accessible in technicity and in cost (with decreasing error rates and increasing read lengths), long-read assemblers have flourished and are starting to deliver chromosome-level assemblies. However,...

The increasing urbanization process is hypothesized to drastically alter (semi‐)natural environments with a concomitant major decline in species abundance and diversity. Yet, studies on this effect of urbanization, and the spatial scale at which it acts, are at present inconclusive due to the large heterogeneity in taxonomic groups and spatial scal...

The basket clam genus, Corbicula, commonly known as the Asian clam, has become one of the most internationally high-profile and widespread aquatic invasive species. This genus is now considered to comprise a polymorphic species complex. The international invasion of Corbicula is characterised by four lineages, each fixed for one morphotype, genotyp...

“Occasional” sexuality occurs when a species is capable of both clonal reproduction and genetic mixing. This strategy is predicted to combine the advantages of both asexuality and sexuality, but its actual consequences on genetic diversity and species longevity are poorly understood. Androgenesis, a reproductive mode in which the offspring usually...

Dispersal is an important driver of local community dynamics. It has been proposed that, for communities composed of microscopic organisms, dispersal could well be the dominant process, outpacing local processes driven by environmental conditions and species interactions. This is because microscopic organisms often reproduce asexually, fostering ra...

We thank Wilson et al. (2018) for their thorough re-analysis of our data and for their constructive criticisms that led our groups to exchange many stimulating emails over the last two years. Although we agree that inter-individual contamination can yield patterns suggestive of inter-individual recombination, we are not fully convinced by their cri...

Body size is intrinsically linked to metabolic rate and life-history traits, and is a crucial determinant of food webs and community dynamics. The increased temperatures associated with the urban-heat-island effect result in increased metabolic costs and are expected to drive shifts to smaller body sizes. Urban environments are, however, also chara...

Due to their high filtration rates, exotic freshwater bivalves remove suspended organic matter from the water column, transferring resources to the sediment and increasing water clarity, which alters ecosystems. While there is a considerable amount of data on filtration rate of exotic bivalves, comparison between species is often invalid due to the...

Signorovitch et al. [1] comment that an Oenothera-like meiosis [2] could produce a pattern similar to what we observed in our study of natural isolates of the bdelloid rotifer Adineta vaga, which we attributed to horizontal gene transfers (HGTs) [3]. Indeed, our HGT hypothesis appears at first sight difficult to conciliate with their observation of...

Although strict asexuality is supposed to be an evolutionary dead end, morphological, cytogenetic, and genomic data suggest that bdelloid rotifers, a clade of microscopic animals, have persisted and diversified for more than 60 Myr in an ameiotic fashion. Moreover, the genome of bdelloids of the genus Adineta comprises 8%-10% of genes of putative n...

Dreissena (Bivalvia: Dreissenidae) species can act as ecosystem engineers, physically altering freshwater ecosystems and changing benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages. The mussel beds they form can provide shelter and food for detritivorous species, whereas fouling can directly impact native bivalves. In this study, we examined the effects of the...

Genetic tools have been extremely useful to study the colonization history and dynamics of invasive species and infer source populations. In addition, understanding the distribution of genetic diversity of non-indigenous species is important to understand factors contributing to invasive success. Here, we used genetic markers to study the invasion...

The disaccharide sugar trehalose is essential for desiccation resistance in most metazoans that survive dryness; however, neither trehalose nor the enzymes involved in its metabolism have ever been detected in bdelloid rotifers despite their extreme resistance to desiccation. Here we screened the genome of the bdelloid rotifer Adineta vaga for gene...

The rapid spread of the quagga mussel, Dreissena rostriformis, in Western Europe is of particular concern since the species is known to have serious ecological and economic impacts, similar to those of the well-established zebra mussel, Dreissena polymorpha. This study aimed (1) to provide an update on the quagga mussel distribution in several Belg...

The clam genus Corbicula is an interesting model system to study the evolution of reproductive modes as it includes both sexual and asexual (androgenetic) lineages. While the sexual populations are restricted to the native Asian areas, the androgenetic lineages are widely distributed being also found in America and Europe where they form a major aq...

Until recently, obligate asexuality was often considered an evolutionary dead end. However, recent advances suggest that conventional sexual reproduction, defined as the alternation of meiosis and fertilization, is not the only sustainable eukaryotic lifestyle. Moreover, different modes of asexual reproduction are observed in nature, raising the qu...

The bdelloid rotifer lineage Adineta vaga inhabits temporary habitats subjected to frequent episodes of drought. The recently published draft sequence of the genome of A. vaga revealed a peculiar genomic structure incompatible with meiosis and suggesting that DNA damage induced by desiccation may have reshaped the genomic structure of these organis...

The zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) and the quagga mussel (Dreissena rostriformis bugensis) are considered as the most competitive invaders in freshwaters of Europe and North America. Although shell characteristics exist to differentiate both species, phenotypic plasticity in the genus Dreissena does not always allow a clear identification. The...

Over the past few decades, A siatic clams ( C orbicula spp.) have spread spectacularly in several large European rivers. In the River Meuse, a transnational lowland river, a substantial chlorophyll a decline has been recorded since the mid‐2000s, which seems to be related to the invasion by these exotic bivalves. This study aimed at verifying this...

Loss of sexual reproduction is considered an evolutionary dead end for metazoans, but bdelloid rotifers challenge this view as they appear to have persisted asexually for millions of years. Neither male sex organs nor meiosis have ever been observed in these microscopic animals: oocytes are formed through mitotic divisions, with no reduction of chr...

1.Old growth temperate broadleaved forests are characterised by a large proportion of forest specialists with low dispersal capability. Hence, species bound to this habitat are expected to be highly susceptible to the effects of decreasing patch size and increasing isolation. 2. Here, we investigate the relative effect of both factors by genotyping...

After its first observation in the Hollandsch Diep in 2006, the quagga mussel expanded in an upstream direction within the rivers, Rhine and Meuse. The species was found throughout the Dutch and Belgian sections of the Meuse River between 2008 and 2011, but was never reported from the Meuse in France, i.e., upstream of the Belgian border. Herein, t...

The segregation and random assortment of characters observed by Mendel have their basis in the behavior of chromosomes in meiosis. But showing this actually to be the case requires a correct understanding of the meiotic behavior of chromosomes. This was achieved only gradually, over several decades, with much dispute and confusion along the way. On...

The aim of this paper is to present the first data on the colonization of the Meuse River by the quagga mussel, Dreissena rostriformis bugensis (Andrusov, 1897). During our study, the quagga mussel was found at several locations in the Dutch and Belgian section. Both quagga and zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha Pallas, 1771) were sampled and the...

Among the asexual reproductive modes, androgenesis is probably one of the most astonishing and least studied mechanisms. In this 'paternal monopolization', the maternal nuclear genome fails to participate in zygote development and offspring are paternal nuclear clones. Obligate androgenesis is known in only a few organisms, including multiple speci...

The aim of this paper is to present the first data on the colonization of the Meuse River by the quagga mussel, Dreissena rostriformis bugensis (Andrusov, 1897). During our study, the quagga mussel was found at several locations in the Dutch and Belgian section. Both quagga and zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha Pallas, 1771) were sampled and the...

The current study aimed to evaluate the influence of domestication process on the stress response and subsequent immune modulation in Eurasian perch juveniles (Perca fluviatilis) submitted to chronic confinement. Briefly, F1 and F4 generations were confined into small-size tanks and sampled 7 and 55 days after stocking. Cortisol and glucose levels...

The existence of three distinct populations is widely accepted for the finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides) in Chinese waters: the Yellow Sea, Yangtze River, and South China Sea populations. Here, we use nine species-specific microsatellite loci, the complete mitochondrial DNA control region (912 bp), and the complete mitochondrial cytochrom...

Sexual reproduction, the exchange and recombination of genetic material between different individuals, is commonly viewed as one of the most important sources of genomic diversity in animals. This genomic diversity is subject to natural selection and, consequently, the fittest genomes relative to the environment survive and persist. According to th...

Alignment file of the 47 COI haplotypes of Corbicula spp. used in the present study.

Alignment file of the three cyt b sequences of the three European morphotypes of Corbicula (R, S and Rlc).

Estimated population structure of Corbicula spp. for K = 3 and mean Ln P(D) ±SD for 10 replicates at each level of K clusters (from 1 to 5).

The genus Corbicula is one of the most invasive groups of molluscs. It includes both sexual and androgenetic lineages. The present study re-assessed the different morphotypes and haplotypes of West European Corbicula in order to clarify their taxonomic identification and phylogenetic relationships with American and Asian Corbicula clams. We studied...

Reliable markers are needed to identify the lineages in the invasive clam genus Corbicula. Previous studies have demonstrated that mitochondrial (mt) DNA poorly resolves Corbicula phylogeny, owing to its androgenetic reproductive mode. Moreover, hybridization and mitochondrial/nuclear mismatches occur. We developed the first eleven polymorphic mark...

14th Evolutionary Biology Meeting, Marseille (France), 21-24 septembre 2010