Genomic differentiation and niche divergence in the Hetaerina americana (Odonata) cryptic species complex

Abstract

The evolution of reproductive barriers, that is, the speciation process, implies the limitation of gene flow between populations. Different patterns of genomic differentiation throughout the speciation continuum may provide insights into the causal evolutionary forces of species divergence. In this study, we analysed a cryptic species complex of the genus Hetaerina (Odonata). This complex includes H. americana and H. calverti; however, in H. americana two highly differentiated genetic groups have been previously detected, which, we hypothesize, may correspond to different species with low morphological variation. We obtained single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data for 90 individuals belonging to the different taxa in the complex and carried out differentiation tests to identify genetic isolation. The results from STRUCTURE and discriminant analysis of principal components (DAPC), based on almost 5000 SNPs, confirmed the presence of three highly differentiated taxa. Also, we found FST values above 0.5 in pairwise comparisons, which indicates a considerable degree of genetic isolation among the suggested species. We also found low climatic niche overlap among all taxa, suggesting that each group occurs at specific conditions of temperature, precipitation and elevation. We propose that H. americana comprises two cryptic species, which may be reproductively isolated by ecological barriers related to niche divergence, since the morphological variation is minimal and, therefore, mechanical barriers are probably less effective compared to other related species such as H. calverti.