0000000000982126
AUTHOR
İBrahim Baran
Cracking the nut: Geographical adjacency of sister taxa supports vicariance in a polytomic salamander clade in the absence of node support
The urodelan genus Lyciasalamandra, which inhabits a relatively small area along the southern Turkish coast and some Aegean islands, provides an outstanding example of a diverse but phylogenetically unresolved taxon. Molecular trees contain a single basal polytomy that could be either soft or hard. We here use the information of nuclear (allozymes) and mitochondrial (fractions of the 16S rRNA and ATPase genes) datasets in combination with area relationships of lineages to resolve the phylogenetic relationships among Lyciasalamandra species in the absence of sufficient node support. We can show that neither random processes nor introgressive hybridization can be invoked to explain that the m…
Distortion of symmetrical introgression in a hybrid zone: evidence for locus-specific selection and uni-directional range expansion
The fate of species integrity upon natural hybridization depends on the interaction between selection and dispersal. The relative significance of these processes may be studied in the initial phase of contact before selection and gene flow reach equilibrium. Here we study a hybrid zone of two salamander species, Lyciasalamandra antalyana and Lyciasalamandra billae, at the initial phase of hybridization. We quantify the degree and mode of introgression using nuclear and mtDNA markers. The hybrid zone can be characterized as an abrupt transition zone, the central hybrid zone being only c. 400 m, but introgressed genes were traced up to 3 km. Introgression was traced in both sexes but gene flo…