Evolution and instability in ring species complexes: An in silico approach to the study of speciation

Ashlock, Daniel; Clare, Elizabeth L.; Konigslow, T. E. von; Ashlock, Wendy

doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2010.03.017

Cited by 22 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Thus, most ring species are not stable, but they can persist for a long time and thus be observed. These results counter the idea of ring species instability reported in previous models (9,34,35).…”

Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 51%

Evolution and stability of ring species

Martins

Aguiar

Bar‐Yam

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Neutral models, in which genetic change arises through random variation without fitness differences, have proven remarkably successful in describing observed patterns of biodiversity, despite the manifest role of selection in evolution. Here we investigate the effect of barriers on biodiversity by simulating the expansion of a population around a barrier to form a ring species, in which the two ends of the population are reproductively isolated despite ongoing gene flow around the ring. We compare the spatial and genetic properties of a neutral agent-based population model to the greenish warblers' complex, a well-documented example of an actual ring species in nature. Our results match the distribution of subspecies, the principal components of genetic diversity, and the linear spatial-genetic correlation of the observed data, even though selection is expected to be important for traits of this species. We find that ring species are often unstable to speciation or mixing but can persist for extended times depending on species and landscape features. For the greenish warblers, our analysis implies that the expanded area near the point of secondary contact is important for extending the duration of the ring, and thus, for the opportunity to observe this ring species. Nevertheless it also suggests the ring will break up into multiple species in 10,000 to 50,000 y. These results imply that simulations can be used to accurately describe empirical data for complex spatial-genetic traits of an individual species.geography | topopatric | allopatric | birds | DNA

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Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 51%

Evolution and stability of ring species

Martins

Aguiar

Bar‐Yam

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Despite the unique opportunity that ring species provide for the study of species divergence, ring species are rare [1,2,6]. There are only two biological systems for which compelling data support the phenomenon and its two core criteria (a historical chain of populations whose two termini meet and remain distinct): the salamander Ensatina eschscholtzii species complex in the mountains surrounding the Central Valley of California [7][8][9], and the greenish warblers (Phylloscopus trochiloides) around the Tibetan Plateau [10,11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Caribbean slipper spurgeEuphorbia tithymaloides: the first example of a ring species in plants

Cacho

Baum

2012

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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A ring species arises when a parental population expands around an area of unsuitable habitat in such a way that when the two fronts meet they behave as distinct species while still being connected through a series of intergrading populations. Ring species offer great possibilities for studying the forces causing species divergence (e.g. the nature of pre-zygotic or post-zygotic reproductive isolation) or helping to maintain species integrity (e.g. reinforcement). Yet, ring species are extremely rare, and have only been documented convincingly in animals. Here, we present phylogenetic analyses of two nuclear gene regions from the Caribbean slipper spurge (Euphorbia tithymaloides) species complex that provide evidence that this group forms a ring species. These data show that the species complex originated in the area where Mexico and Guatemala meet, and expanded around the Caribbean basin along two distinct fronts: one eastward through the Yucatan Peninsula and into the Greater Antilles (GA); one southeastward through northern South America and then northward to the Lesser Antilles and eastern GA. The two terminal forms co-occur in the Virgin Islands and appear to be morphologically and ecologically distinct. Thus, our results suggest that Euphorbia tithymaloides is the first compelling example of a ring species in plants.

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“…Ring species are interesting examples of such, where geography plays a crucial role in physically shaping the ring but does not block dispersal or gene flow along the ring [22][23][24][25]. A recent study of cluster formation with similar interactions was performed by Scott et al (2013) using a sympatric model [26].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Diploid versus haploid models of neutral speciation

2016

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Neutral models of speciation based on isolation by distance and assortative mating, termed topopatric, have shown to be successful in describing abundance distributions and species-area relationships. Previous works have considered this type of process in the context of haploid genomes. Here we discuss the implementation of two schemes of dominance to analyze the effects of diploidy: a complete dominance model in which one allele dominates over the other and a perfect codominant model in which heterozygous genotypes give rise to a third phenotype. In the case of complete dominance, we observe that speciation requires stronger spatial inbreeding in comparison to the haploid model. For perfect codominance, instead, speciation demands stronger genetic assortativeness. Nevertheless, once speciation is established, the three models predict the same abundance distributions even at the quantitative level, revealing the robustness of the original mechanism to describe biodiversity features.

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Evolution and instability in ring species complexes: An in silico approach to the study of speciation

Cited by 22 publications

References 36 publications

Evolution and stability of ring species

Evolution and stability of ring species

The Caribbean slipper spurgeEuphorbia tithymaloides: the first example of a ring species in plants

Diploid versus haploid models of neutral speciation

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