One Species or Several? Discordant Patterns of Geographic Variation between Allozymes and mtDNA Sequences among Spiders in the Genus Metepeira (Araneae: Araneidae) |
| |
Authors: | William H Piel Karen J Nutt |
| |
Institution: | a Institute of Evolutionary and Ecological Sciences, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9516, 2300 RA, Leiden, The Netherlands;b Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California, 94720 |
| |
Abstract: | Paradoxically, an allozyme study of Metepeira “spinipes” (sensu lato) demonstrated extensive gene flow among four populations whose members are nevertheless morphologically and behaviorally distinct. Initially, the authors tentatively concluded that the populations exhibited panmixis and suggested that local environmental effects accounted for the apparent morphological and behavioral differences. However, they later concluded that such differences were too great to be accounted for by the environment alone and that the four populations actually represented three different species. To confirm that the allozyme results were, in fact, artifactual, we reexamined the relationships among these populations by sequencing a portion of the 12S mtDNA ribosomal subunit. In contrast to the allozyme result, our results demonstrate good agreement between patterns of genetic and morphological/behavioral variation. We suggest (1) that the allozyme allele frequencies are homogenized by balancing selection, not gene flow as was previously concluded, and therefore (2) that this study provides another instance in which inferences about population structures from allozyme data are misleading. |
| |
Keywords: | Metepeira allozymes mitochondrial ribosomal DNA discordance molecular systematics |
本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录! |
|