Exploring coral speciation: Multiple sympatric Stylophora pistillata taxa along a divergence continuum on the Great Barrier Reef.

ABSTRACT: Understanding how biodiversity originates and is maintained are fundamental challenge in evolutionary biology. Speciation is a continuous process and progression along this continuum depends on the interplay between evolutionary forces driving divergence and forces promoting genetic homogenisation. Coral reefs are broadly connected yet highly heterogeneous ecosystems, and divergence with gene flow at small spatial scales might therefore be common. Genomic studies are increasingly revealing the existence of closely related and sympatric taxa within taxonomic coral species, but the extent to which these taxa might still be exchanging genes and sharing environmental niches is unclear. In this study, we sampled extensively across diverse habitats at multiple reefs of the Great Barrier Reef (GB

SUBMITTER: Meziere Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10818133 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature