Extensive mitochondrial heteroplasmy in hybrid water frog (Pelophylax spp.) populations from Southeast Europe.

ABSTRACT: Water frogs of the genus Pelophylax (previous Rana) species have been much studied in Europe for their outstanding reproductive mechanism in which sympatric hybridization between genetically distinct parental species produces diverse genetic forms of viable hybrid animals. The most common hybrid is P. esculentus that carries the genomes of both parental species, P. ridibundus and P. lessonae, but usually transfers the whole genome of only one parent to its offsprings (hybridogenesis). The evolutionary cost of transfer of the intact genome and hence the hemiclonal reproduction is the depletion of heterozygosity in the hybrid populations. Pelophylax esculentus presents an excellent example of the long-term sustained hybridization and hemiclonal reproduction in which the effects of the low ge

SUBMITTER: Radojicic JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4670067 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature