The role of historical biogeography in shaping colour morph diversity in the common wall lizard

Abstract

The maintenance of polymorphisms often depends on multiple selective forces, but less is known on the role of stochastic or historical processes in maintaining variation. The common wall lizard (Podarcis muralis) is a colour polymorphic species in which local colour morph frequencies are thought to be modulated by natural and sexual selection. Here, we used genome‐wide single‐nucleotide polymorphism data to investigate the relationships between morph composition and population biogeography at a regional scale, by comparing morph composition with patterns of genetic variation of 54 populations sampled across the Pyrenees. We found that genetic divergence was explained by geographic distance but not by environmental features. Differences in morph composition were associated with genetic and environmental differentiation, as well as differences in sex ratio. Thus, variation in colour morph frequencies could have arisen via historical events and/or differences in the permeability to gene flow, possibly shaped by the complex topography and environment. In agreement with this hypothesis, colour morph diversity was positively correlated with genetic diversity and rates of gene flow and inversely correlated with the likelihood of the occurrence of bottlenecks. Concurrently, we did not find conclusive evidence for selection in the two colour loci. As an illustration of these effects, we observed that populations with higher proportions of the rarer yellow and yellow‐orange morphs had higher genetic diversity. Our results suggest that processes involving a decay in overall genetic diversity, such as reduced gene flow and/or bottleneck events have an important role in shaping population‐specific morph composition via non‐selective processes.