THE EVOLUTIONARY HISTORY OF DARWIN'S FINCHES: SPECIATION,GENE FLOW,AND INTROGRESSION IN A FRAGMENTED LANDSCAPE

Many classic examples of adaptive radiations take place within fragmented systems such as islands or mountains, but the roles of mosaic landscapes and variable gene flow in facilitating species diversification is poorly understood. Here we combine phylogenetic and landscape genetic approaches to understand diversification in Darwin's finches, a model adaptive radiation. We combined sequence data from 14 nuclear introns, mitochondrial markers, and microsatellite variation from 51 populations of all 15 recognized species. Phylogenetic species‐trees recovered seven major finch clades: ground, tree, vegetarian, Cocos Island, grey and green warbler finches, and a distinct clade of sharp‐beaked ground finches (Geospiza cf. difficilis) basal to all ground and tree finches. The ground and tree finch clades lack species‐level phylogenetic structure. Interisland gene flow and interspecies introgression vary geographically in predictable ways. First, several species exhibit concordant patterns of population divergence across the channel separating the Galápagos platform islands from the separate volcanic province of northern islands. Second, peripheral islands have more admixed populations while central islands maintain more distinct species boundaries. This landscape perspective highlights a likely role for isolation of peripheral populations in initial divergence, and demonstrates that peripheral populations may maintain genetic diversity through outbreeding during the initial stages of speciation.