Dataset Information

Para-allopatry in hybridizing fire-bellied toads (Bombina bombina and B. variegata): Inference from transcriptome-wide coalescence analyses.

ABSTRACT: Ancient origins, profound ecological divergence, and extensive hybridization make the fire-bellied toads Bombina bombina and B. variegata (Anura: Bombinatoridae) an intriguing test case of ecological speciation. Previous modeling has proposed that the narrow Bombina hybrid zones represent strong barriers to neutral introgression. We test this prediction by inferring the rate of gene exchange between pure populations on either side of the intensively studied Kraków transect. We developed a method to extract high confidence sets of orthologous genes from de novo transcriptome assemblies, fitted a range of divergence models to these data and assessed their relative support with analytic likelihood calculations. There was clear evidence for postdivergence gene flow, but, as expected, no perceptible signal of recent introgression via the nearby hybrid zone. The analysis of two additional Bombina taxa (B. v. scabra and B. orientalis) validated our parameter estimates against a larger set of prior expectations. Despite substantial cumulative introgression over millions of years, adaptive divergence of the hybridizing taxa is essentially unaffected by their lack of reproductive isolation. Extended distribution ranges also buffer them against small-scale environmental perturbations that have been shown to reverse the speciation process in other, more recent ecotypes.

SUBMITTER: Nurnberger B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5129456 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Para-allopatry in hybridizing fire-bellied toads (Bombina bombina and B. variegata): Inference from transcriptome-wide coalescence analyses.

Nürnberger Beate B Lohse Konrad K Fijarczyk Anna A Szymura Jacek M JM Blaxter Mark L ML

Evolution; international journal of organic evolution 20160708 8

Ancient origins, profound ecological divergence, and extensive hybridization make the fire-bellied toads Bombina bombina and B. variegata (Anura: Bombinatoridae) an intriguing test case of ecological speciation. Previous modeling has proposed that the narrow Bombina hybrid zones represent strong barriers to neutral introgression. We test this prediction by inferring the rate of gene exchange between pure populations on either side of the intensively studied Kraków transect. We developed a method ...[more]

PMID: 27282112

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Project description:Yellow-bellied toad populations (Bombina variegata) show a wide fast-slow continuum of the life-history trait longevity ranging from 5 to 23 years. We investigated populations in Germany (n = 8) and Austria (n = 1) to determine their position within the continuum of longevity and the potential drivers of adult survival at the local and the continental scale. Intrinsic and extrinsic factors considered were local weather, nutritional state, allocation of ingested energy to somatic growth, pathogen prevalence, and geographical clines (latitude, altitude, and longitude). Capture-mark-recapture (CMR) monitoring and direct age assessment by skeletochronology allowed for reliable estimates of longevity and adult survival. Raw and corrected recapture rates as well as a probabilistic estimate of the lifespan of the eldest 1% adults of a cohort (CMR data) were used as surrogates for adult survival and thus longevity in a population. Additionally, survival rates were calculated from static life tables based on the age structure (skeletochronological data) of eight populations. Populations in Germany were short-lived with a maximum lifespan of annual cohorts varying from 5 to 8 years, whereas the population in Austria was long-lived with a cohort longevity of 13 to 23 years. We provide evidence that annual survival rates and longevity differ among years and between short- and long-lived populations, but there was no decrease of survival in older toads (i.e. absence of senescence). Variation of weather among years accounted for 90.7% of variance in annual survival rates of short-lived populations, whereas the sources of variation in the long-lived population remained unidentified. At the continental scale, longevity variation among B. variegata populations studied so far did not correspond to geographical clines or climate variation. Therefore, we propose that a population's position within the fast-slow continuum integrates the response to local environmental stochasticity (extrinsic source of variation) and the efficiency of chemical antipredator protection determining the magnitude of longevity (intrinsic source of variation).

Dataset Information

Para-allopatry in hybridizing fire-bellied toads (Bombina bombina and B. variegata): Inference from transcriptome-wide coalescence analyses.

Publications

Para-allopatry in hybridizing fire-bellied toads (Bombina bombina and B. variegata): Inference from transcriptome-wide coalescence analyses.

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