Presentation Detail

SSB Symposium: Ernst Mayr Symposium

McElroy, Matthew [1].

Testing for simultaneous divergence and gene flow in sister-pairs of physiologically divergent Anolis lizards from Puerto Rico.

Comparative phylogeography provides a powerful means to test for shared evolutionary histories across co-distributed taxa. Anolis lizards represent a diverse adaptive radiation in the Greater Antilles and are a model system for studying ecology and evolution, and are therefore an attractive group for testing comparative phylogeographic models. Anolis lizards are well known for forming distinct ecological groups – termed “ecomorphs” – composed of closely-related species that are similar in morphology and structural habitat use. On Puerto Rico, however, these closely related-species are often highly divergent in thermal biology and inhabit different climatic niches. I compiled a multi-locus nuclear dataset to test for simultaneous divergence and shared evolutionary histories of species pairs. I tested for signals of gene flow between sister species which could support a model of speciation resulting from ecological divergence and thermal adaptation as opposed to allopatric speciation. Coalescent analyses from *BEAST and IMa2 indicate that speciation likely occurred asynchronously, indicating that speciation and thermal adaptation has occurred repeatedly and at different temporal scales. Furthermore, in one species pair there has been gene flow between sister-species indicating that speciation may have proceeded despite gene flow, or that reproductive isolation barriers were incomplete when species came in to secondary contact.

1 - University of Washington, Biology, University of Washington, BOX 351800, Seattle, WA, 98195-1800, USA

Keywords:
adaptive radiation
simultaneous divergence
gene flow
*BEAST
IMa2.

Presentation Type: Symposium Presentation
Session: 212
Location: Ballroom 2/Cliff Lodge
Date: Sunday, June 23rd, 2013
Time: 11:30 AM
Number: 212005
Abstract ID:1238
Candidate for Awards:Ernst Mayr Award,W.D. Hamilton Award for Outstanding Student Presentation