Where and when does a ring start and end? Testing the ring-species hypothesis in a species complex of Australian parrots.

ABSTRACT: Speciation, despite ongoing gene flow can be studied directly in nature in ring species that comprise two reproductively isolated populations connected by a chain or ring of intergrading populations. We applied three tiers of spatio-temporal analysis (phylogeny/historical biogeography, phylogeography and landscape/population genetics) to the data from mitochondrial and nuclear genomes of eastern Australian parrots of the Crimson Rosella Platycercus elegans complex to understand the history and present genetic structure of the ring they have long been considered to form. A ring speciation hypothesis does not explain the patterns we have observed in our data (e.g. multiple genetic discontinuities, discordance in genotypic and phenotypic assignments where terminal differentiates meet). Howeve

SUBMITTER: Joseph L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2603204 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature