Habitat segregation and ecological character displacement in cryptic African malaria mosquitoes.

ABSTRACT: Understanding how divergent selection generates adaptive phenotypic and population diversification provides a mechanistic explanation of speciation in recently separated species pairs. Towards this goal, we sought ecological gradients of divergence between the cryptic malaria vectors Anopheles coluzzii and An. gambiae and then looked for a physiological trait that may underlie such divergence. Using a large set of occurrence records and eco-geographic information, we built a distribution model to predict the predominance of the two species across their range of sympatry. Our model predicts two novel gradients along which the species segregate: distance from the coastline and altitude. Anopheles coluzzii showed a 'bimodal' distribution, predominating in xeric West African savannas and along

SUBMITTER: Tene Fossog B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4408144 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature