Genomic and bioacoustic variation in a midwife toad hybrid zone: A role for reinforcement?

ABSTRACT: Hybrid zones, i.e., geographic areas where diverging lineages meet, hybridize and eventually mix their genomes, offer opportunities to understand the mechanisms behind reproductive isolation and speciation. Hybrid zones are particularly well suited to study reinforcement, i.e., the process by which selection against hybridization increases reproductive barriers, which, in anuran amphibians, is typically expressed by increased divergence in advertisement calls-the main cue to assortative mating-in parapatric ranges. Using mitochondrial barcoding (16S sequences), population genomics (thousands of SNPs) and bioacoustic analyses (four call parameters), we examine the hybrid zone between two incipient species of midwife toads (Alytes obstetricans and A. almogavarii) in southern France, with the

SUBMITTER: Ambu J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11588267 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature