Can secondary contact following range expansion be distinguished from barriers to gene flow?

ABSTRACT: Secondary contact is the reestablishment of gene flow between sister populations that have diverged. For instance, at the end of the Quaternary glaciations in Europe, secondary contact occurred during the northward expansion of the populations which had found refugia in the southern peninsulas. With the advent of multi-locus markers, secondary contact can be investigated using various molecular signatures including gradients of allele frequency, admixture clines, and local increase of genetic differentiation. We use coalescent simulations to investigate if molecular data provide enough information to distinguish between secondary contact following range expansion and an alternative evolutionary scenario consisting of a barrier to gene flow in an isolation-by-distance model. We find that an

SUBMITTER: Bertl J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6171497 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature