Meeting Abstract
Immune gene diversity is linked to disease susceptibility in a wide variety of animal taxa, particularly relationships between Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) polymorphism in vertebrates and resistance to specific pathogens. While MHC polymorphism is a significant predictor of chytridiomycosis susceptibility across vertebrate taxa, we lack a spatiotemporal understanding of how immune gene diversity and disease pressure have interacted to shape population persistence. In amphibians, the fungal disease chytridiomycosis has caused the decline or extinction of hundreds of species, prompting numerous genetic and immunogenetic investigations into disease susceptibility. Here, we use the widespread North American frog Rana pipiens and compare mitochondrial and MHC diversity over space (continent-wide) and time (1970s-present) to identify whether phylogeographic patterns of diversity and population stability are consistent with MHC-based functional genetic diversity. Additionally, we compare MHC allelic diversity across Rana pipiens populations to MHC diversity in other anuran taxa, and test whether populations that are declining in the western USA have reduced immunogenetic diversity or lack known protective MHC alleles and supertypes. Ultimately, we aim to understand how frogs are responding to disease on a broad spatial scale by resolving whether immunogenetic adaptation is a central driver of population persistence or if neutral demography dictates evolutionary trajectories.
