Experimental evidence of genome-wide impact of ecological selection during early stages of speciation-with-gene-flow

Abstract

Theory predicts that speciation-with-gene-flow is more likely when the consequences of selection for population divergence transitions from mainly direct effects of selection acting on individual genes to a collective property of all selected genes in the genome. Thus, understanding the direct impacts of ecologically based selection, as well as the indirect effects due to correlations among loci, is critical to understanding speciation. Here, we measure the genome-wide impacts of host-associated selection between hawthorn and apple host races of Rhagoletis pomonella (Diptera: Tephritidae), a model for contemporary speciation-with-gene-flow. Allele frequency shifts of 32ᅠ455 SNPs induced in a selection experiment based on host phenology were genome wide and highly concordant with genetic divergence between co-occurring apple and hawthorn flies in nature. This striking genome-wide similarity between experimental and natural populations of R. pomonella underscores the importance of ecological selection at early stages of divergence and calls for further integration of studies of eco-evolutionary dynamics and genome divergence.

Description
Advisor
Degree
Type
Journal article
Keywords
Citation

Egan, Scott P., Ragland, Gregory J., Assour, Lauren, et al.. "Experimental evidence of genome-wide impact of ecological selection during early stages of speciation-with-gene-flow." Ecology Letters, 18, no. 8 (2015) Wiley: 817-825. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.12460.

Has part(s)
Forms part of
Rights
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
Citable link to this page