Mitonuclear Ecology

Eukaryotes were born of a chimeric union of two prokaryotes. The legacy of this fusion is organisms with both a nuclear and mitochondrial genome that must work in a coordinated fashion to enable cellular respiration. The coexistence of two genomes in a single organism requires tight coadaptation to enable function. The need for coadaptation, the challenge of co-transmission, and the possibility of genomic conflict between mitochondrial and nuclear genes have profound consequences for the ecology and evolution of eukaryotic life. This book defines mitonuclear ecology as an emerging field that reassesses core concepts in evolutionary ecology in light of the necessity of mitonuclear coadaptation. I discuss and summarize research that tests new mitonuclear-based theories for the evolution of sex, two sexes, senescence, a sequestered germ line, speciation, sexual selection, and adaptation. The ideas presented in this book represent a paradigm shift for evolutionary ecology. Through the twentieth century, mitochondrial genomes were dismissed as unimportant to the evolution of complex life because variation within mitochondrial genomes was proposed to be functionally neutral. These conceptions about mitochondrial genomes and mitonuclear genomic interactions have been changing rapidly, and a growing literature in top journals is making it increasingly clear that the interactions of the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes over the past 2 billion years have played a major role in shaping the evolution of eukaryotes. These new hypotheses for the evolution of quintessential characteristics of complex life hold the potential to fundamentally reshape the field of evolutionary ecology and to inform the emerging fields of mitochondrial medicine and mitochondrial-based reproductive therapies.