Molecular and morphological evidence of hybridization between newts Triturus vulgaris and T. montandoni (Caudata: Salamandridae) in Slovakia

Mikulíček, Peter; Zavadil, Vít

doi:10.2478/s11756-008-0006-2

Cited by 4 publications

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References 19 publications

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“…color signaling in Ichthyosaura alpestris (Himstedt, 1979)) or postzygotic (by selection against hybrids (Grant and Grant, 1994;Naisbit, Jiggins and Mallet, 2001)). Morphology of species-specific traits and male secondary sexual traits in L. vulgaris and L. montandoni is well described in the literature (Raxworthy, 1990;Krizmanic et al, 1997;Mikulíček and Zavadil, 2008). However, two subspecies of L. vulgaris hybridizing with L. montandoni -L. v. vulgaris and L. v. ampelensis -also differ in morphology (Sos and Hegyeli, 2015), which may influence the extent and direction of hybridization between L. montandoni and each of L. vulgaris subspecies.…”

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confidence: 90%

Morphology is a poor predictor of interspecific admixture – the case of two naturally hybridizing newts Lissotriton montandoni and Lissotriton vulgaris (Caudata: Salamandridae)

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Głowacki²,

Zieliński

et al. 2020

Amphib.-Reptilia

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Compared to the parental species, interspecific hybrids often show intermediate phenotypes which can affect their fitness directly and/or their attractiveness to potential mates. Lissotriton montandoni and Lissotriton vulgaris hybridize across their parapatric range along the Carpathian mountains. Hybrids are rare in natural hybrid zones, which may be related to strong assortative mating in parental species. In the present study, we investigated morphological male species-specific traits and their differentiation between both parental species and first generation of interspecific hybrids (F1), considering morphological variation between two L. vulgaris subspecies co-occurring with L. montandoni in nature: L. v. vulgaris and L. v. ampelensis. Male morphology of each group was assessed and compared based on species-specific and sexual secondary traits, selected based on the literature review. We confirmed that F1 hybrids of L. v. vulgaris and L. montandoni have an intermediate morphology between parental species. However, when morphological traits were compared with the level of genetic admixture of individuals in natural hybrid zones, we discovered that even early generations hybrids (i.e. F1 and/or F2 generation) can be similar to the parental species (especially L. v. ampelensis). As even early generations hybrids can be morphologically undistinguishable from L. v. ampelensis, sexual attractiveness of hybrids may be potentially less affected in direction of L. v. ampelensis backcrossing. Summarizing, morphology, especially morphology of male secondary sexual traits is not a reliable tool for the estimation of genetic admixture of an individual in natural populations within the hybrid zone.

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