Comparison between morphs’ melanin pathway coding genes
Among the 15 coding sequences compared between colour morphs, only 5 showed genetic variation. AGRP (agouti-related neuropeptide),POMC (proopiomelanocortin), TYRP1 (Tyrosinase-related protein1) all showed synonymous mutations. and the two copies of the melanocortin concentrating hormone receptor (MCHR1 and MHCR1-like ). Among these, we found both a non-synonymous substitution in the copy that appeared to be functional (no stop codons were identified within the coding sequence) and also a non-synonymous substitution on the other copy – possibly a pseudo-gene as identified in the chicken (Cui et al., 2017). A reconstruction of the MCHRphylogeny suggests that pseudogenization is trans-specific and associated with a putative gene duplication, putative copies cluster in distinct branches, independently of the species where they originate from (Fig. 1).