Data from: Genetic variation for mitochondrial function in the New Zealand freshwater snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum

The proteins responsible for mitochondrial function are encoded by two different genomes with distinct inheritance regimes, rendering rigorous inference of genotype–phenotype connections intractable for all but a few model systems. Asexual organisms provide a powerful means to address these challenges because offspring produced without recombination inherit both nuclear and mitochondrial genomes from a single parent. As such, these offspring inherit mitonuclear genotypes that are identical to the mitonuclear genotypes of their parents and siblings and different from those of other asexual lineages. Here, we compared mitochondrial function across distinct asexual lineages of Potamopyrgus antipodarum, a New Zealand freshwater snail model for understanding the evolutionary consequences of asexuality. Our analyses revealed substantial phenotypic variation across asexual lineages at three levels of biological organization: mitogenomic, organellar, and organismal. These data demonstrate that different asexual lineages have different mitochondrial function phenotypes, likely reflecting heritable variation (that is, the raw material for evolution) for mitochondrial function in P. antipodarum. The discovery of this variation combined with the methods developed here sets the stage to use P. antipodarum to study central evolutionary questions involving mitochondrial function, including whether mitochondrial mutation accumulation influences the maintenance of sexual reproduction in natural populations.负责线粒体功能的蛋白质由两种具有不同遗传模式的基因组编码，这使得除少数模式生物系统外，几乎无法严谨推断基因型-表型之间的关联。无性生殖生物为解决这些难题提供了强有力的途径：由于无需重组即可产生后代，它们的核基因组与线粒体基因组均来自单一亲本。因此，这些后代所继承的核-线粒体基因型与亲本及同胞的核-线粒体基因型完全一致，且与其他无性生殖谱系的核-线粒体基因型存在差异。本研究对不同无性生殖谱系的Potamopyrgus antipodarum（一种用于探究无性生殖进化后果的新西兰淡水蜗牛模式物种）的线粒体功能进行了比较分析。我们的分析显示，在生物组织的三个层级——线粒体基因组层级、细胞器层级以及个体层级——的无性生殖谱系间存在显著的表型变异。这些数据表明，不同的无性生殖谱系具有不同的线粒体功能表型，这很可能反映了P. antipodarum中线粒体功能的可遗传变异（即进化的原始材料）。这一变异的发现结合本研究开发的方法，为利用P. antipodarum研究涉及线粒体功能的核心进化问题奠定了基础，其中包括线粒体突变积累是否会影响自然种群中性生殖的维持。