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Fig. 6 | EvoDevo

Fig. 6

From: Differential expression of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor pathway associates with craniofacial polymorphism in sympatric Arctic charr

Fig. 6

Significant expression correlations between Ahr2b, AhR-regulated genes and the seven previously identified genes and their distinct benthic–limnetic expression dynamics. a Correlation analyses revealed negative or positive expression correlation of Ahr2, AhR-regulated genes and the seven previously identified genes during craniofacial development. Pearson correlation coefficient (r) was used to assess the pairwise expression similarity between the candidate genes. Blue shading represents positive and red shading represents negative expression correlation and the colour gradients indicate correlation coefficients (r) above critical values (2-tail; df = 28). P values of <0.05, 0.01 and 0.001 are indicated by one, two and three asterisks, respectively. b Analyses of correlations (Kendall’s tau) between the expression of Ahr2, Ap2 and Foxq1 and the expression of other genes classified in three groups: an Up group including genes with significantly higher expression in the benthic charr morphs, a Down group with genes with significantly lower expression in benthic morphs and a Rest group including genes without significant expression difference between benthic and limnetic charr. Non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA indicated difference among gene groups for the three TFs (P < 0.005). c A distinct morph and time-dependent expression pattern of the AhR-regulated and the seven previously identified genes were seen in developing heads of Arctic charr. The selected genes were subjected to double clustering based on expression correlation of the genes and between morphs by time effects across six stages. Both gene and morph-time clustering dendrograms include two main branches and each branch contains a few sub-clusters. A clear benthic–limnetic separation is observed in sub-clusters of the morph-time dendrogram (benthic samples depicted in red). Also, a clear separation of AhR-induced and the seven identified genes is observed in the gene clustering. Blue and yellow shadings represent higher and lower relative expression, respectively

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