Genome size in cyclopoid copepods (Copepoda: Cyclopoida): chromatin diminution as a hypothesized mechanism of evolutionary constraint

Abstract

Abstract Genome size is a fundamental property of organisms that impacts their molecular evolution and life histories. The hypothesis that somatic genome sizes in copepods in the order Cyclopoida are small and evolutionary constrained relative to those in the order Calanoida was proposed 15 years ago. Since then, the number of estimates has almost doubled and the taxon sampling has broadened. Here we add 14 new estimates from eight genera of freshwater cyclopoids that vary from 0.2 to 6.6 pg of DNA per nucleus in the soma; all except one are 2.0 pg DNA per nucleus or smaller. This new sample adds to the pattern of genome size in copepods and is remarkably similar to the distribution on which the original hypothesis was based, as well as those of subsequently published estimates. Embryonic chromatin diminution, during which large portions of DNA are excised from the presomatic cell lineage, is reported in Paracyclops affinis (G.O. Sars, 1863). This diminution results in a somatic genome that is one half the size of the germline genome. When the sizes of the germline genomes carried in presomatic cells of cyclopoid species that possess chromatin diminution are considered, the prediminuted germline genome sizes of cyclopoid embryos overlap with the distribution of calanoid somatic genome sizes, supporting the hypothesis that chromatin diminution has functioned as a mechanism to constrain somatic nuclear DNA content in cyclopoid copepods. Geographically based variation in genome size among populations is also reviewed.