Test for simultaneous divergence using approximate Bayesian computation

Comparative phylogeographic studies often reveal disparate levels of sequence divergence between lineages spanning a common geographic barrier, leading to the conclusion that isolation was nonsynchronous. However, only rarely do researchers account for the expected variance associated with ancestral coalescence and among-taxon variation in demographic history. We introduce a flexible approximate Bayesian computational (ABC) framework that can test for simultaneous divergence (TSD) using a hierarchical model that incorporates idiosyncratic differences in demographic history across taxon pairs. The method is tested across a range of conditions and is shown to be accurate even with single-locus mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) data. We apply this method to a landmark dataset of putative simultaneous vicariance, eight geminate echinoid taxon pairs thought to have been split by the Isthmus of Panama 3.1 million years ago. The ABC posterior estimates are not consistent with a history of simultaneous vicariance given these data. Subsequent ABC estimates under a constrained model that assumes two divergence times across the eight taxon pairs suggests simultaneous divergence 3.1 million years ago in seven of the taxon pairs and a more recent divergence in the remaining taxon pair. These ABC estimates on the simultaneous divergence of the seven taxon pairs correspond to a DNA substitution rate of approximately 1.59% per lineage per million years at the mtDNA cytochrome oxidase I gene. This ABC framework can easily be modified to analyze single taxon-pair datasets and/or be expanded to include multiple loci, migration, recombination, and other idiosyncratic demographic histories. The flexible aspect of ABC and its built-in evaluation of estimator bias and statistical power has the potential to greatly enhance statistical rigor in phylogeographic studies.     

Massive gene flow across the world's most potent marine biogeographic barrier

The ''Eastern Pacific Barrier'' (EPB), 5400 km of uninterrupted deep water between the central and eastern Pacific, constitutes the greatest marine obstacle to the dispersal of shallow-water organisms. However, some species are found on both sides of the EPB. These ''transpacific'' species are considered by ''dispersal'' biogeographers as evidence of invasions through the barrier. ''Vicariance'' biogeographers, on the other hand, think that transpacific species are morphologically conservative remnants of previously continuous distributions. We compared nucleotide sequences in a 642 bp region of mitochondrial DNA, and electrophoretically detected alleles in 17 enzymatic loci of central and eastern Pacific populations of Echinothrix diadema, an Indo-Pacific sea urchin recently reported from the eastern Pacific. Both types of molecules produced clear evidence of massive, recent gene flow across the EPB. Thus, rather than being isolated relicts of Tethyan distributions, conspecific populations from the eastern and central Pacific are genetically connected. Though the EPB is biogeographically important as a cause of speciation in many groups, it allows genetic connections in others, possibly through larval transport during El Niño events.