Genomic basis of insularity and ecological divergence in barn owls (Tyto alba) of the Canary Islands.

ABSTRACT: Islands, and the particular organisms that populate them, have long fascinated biologists. Due to their isolation, islands offer unique opportunities to study the effect of neutral and adaptive mechanisms in determining genomic and phenotypical divergence. In the Canary Islands, an archipelago rich in endemics, the barn owl (Tyto alba), present in all the islands, is thought to have diverged into a subspecies (T. a. gracilirostris) on the eastern ones, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote. Taking advantage of 40 whole-genomes and modern population genomics tools, we provide the first look at the origin and genetic makeup of barn owls of this archipelago. We show that the Canaries hold diverse, long-standing and monophyletic populations with a neat distinction of gene pools from the different island

SUBMITTER: Cumer T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9613907 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature