The genetic architecture of hybridisation between two lineages of greenshell mussels

A multidisciplinary approach has identified sigmoidal genetic clines on the east and west coasts in central New Zealand where low-density ecological interactions occur between northern and southern lineages of the endemic greenshell mussel, Perna canaliculus. The sigmoidal clines indicate the existence of a mussel hybrid zone in a region of genetic discontinuities for many continuously distributed coastal taxa, in particular marine invertebrates. Examination of the genetic architecture of the hybrid zone revealed the differential contribution of individual microsatellite loci and/or alleles to defining the zone of interaction and no evidence of increased allelic richness or heterozygosity inside versus outside the hybrid zone. Genomics cline analysis identified one locus in particular (Pcan1–27) as being different from neutral expectations, thereby contributing to lineage differentiation. Estimates of contemporary gene flow revealed very high levels of within-lineage self-recruitment and a hybrid zone composed mostly (~85%) of northern immigrants. Broad scale interpretation of these results is consistent with a zone of genetic interaction that was generated between 0.3 and 1.3 million years before present at a time of pronounced global sea-level change. At that time, the continuous distribution of the greenshell mussel was split into northern and southern groups, which differentiated to become distinct lineages, and which have subsequently been reunited (secondary contact) resulting in the generation of the hybrid zone at ~42°S.