Genes underlying adaptive physiological shifts among hibernating mammals

Hibernation has evolved independently in several mammalian lineages, allowing animals to survive extreme environmental conditions through profound physiological shifts, including reduced metabolic rate, heart rate, respiration, and body temperature. These physiological shifts allow hibernators to rely solely on fat reserves, simultaneously avoiding the adverse effects of prolonged immobility seen in non-hibernating species. Although research on individual species has highlighted key aspects of these adaptations, the genetic basis of hibernation across mammals remains poorly understood. Synthesizing both single species and comparative approaches, we use metabolomic data from waking and hibernating black bears (Ursus americanus) to guide bioinformatic analyses of genes using tests of selection and evolutionary rate convergence across independent lineages of hibernating mammals. Our analyses reveal significant changes in carnitine levels between states. Using public databases we generate c..., , # Genes underlying adaptive physiological shifts among hibernating mammals

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.sn02v6xgw](10.5061/dryad.sn02v6xgw)

This dataset accompanies the manuscript *\"Genes Underlying Adaptive Physiological Shifts Among Hibernating Mammals\"* and provides files used in comparative genomics and gene enrichment analyses related to hibernation and carnitine metabolism in mammals.

## File Descriptions

**1. RERConverge_120MasterTree.tre**

* Format: Newick (.tre)
* Description: Species tree topology used in RERconverge analyses of gene-wide evolutionary rate shifts.

**2. 206Species_MasterTree.tre**

* Format: Newick (.tre)
* Description: Full species tree for all species represented in the 404 carnitine-related genes from NCBI ortholog datasets. Used to prune gene-specific trees for selection tests.

**3. 19610_mammalGeneTrees.txt**

* Format: Plain text (multi-line Newick format)
* Description: Protein-based gene trees from 19,610 orthologs across 120 mammalian genomes, fo...,