Speciation and hybridization in invasive fire ants.

ABSTRACT:

Background

A major focus of evolutionary biology is the formation of reproductive barriers leading to divergence and ultimately, speciation. Often, it is not clear whether the separation of populations is complete or if there still is ongoing gene flow in the form of rare cases of admixture, known as isolation with migration. Here, we studied the speciation of two fire ant species, Solenopsis invicta and Solenopsis richteri, both native to South America, both inadvertently introduced to North America in the early twentieth century. While the two species are known to admix in the introduced range, in the native range no hybrids were found.

Results

We conducted a population genomic survey of native and introduced populations of the two species using reduced representation geno

SUBMITTER: Cohen P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6542140 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature