Hybridization between distant lineages increases adaptive variation during a biological invasion: stickleback in Switzerland

Lucek, Kay; Roy, Denis; Bezault, Etienne; Sivasundar, Arjun; Seehausen, Ole (2010). Hybridization between distant lineages increases adaptive variation during a biological invasion: stickleback in Switzerland. Molecular Ecology, 19(18), pp. 3995-4011. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2010.04781.x

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The three-spined stickleback is a widespread Holarctic species complex that radiated from the sea into freshwaters after the retreat of the Pleistocene ice sheets. In Switzerland, sticklebacks were absent with the exception of the far northwest, but different introduced populations have expanded to occupy a wide range of habitats since the late 19th century. A well-studied adaptive phenotypic trait in sticklebacks is the number of lateral plates. With few exceptions, freshwater and marine populations in Europe are fixed for either the low plated phenotype or the fully plated phenotype, respectively. Switzerland, in contrast, harbours in close proximity the full range of phenotypic variation known from across the continent. We addressed the phylogeographic origins of Swiss sticklebacks using mitochondrial partial cytochrome b and control region sequences. We found only five different haplotypes but these originated from three distinct European regions, fixed for different plate phenotypes. These lineages occur largely in isolation at opposite ends of Switzerland, but co-occur in a large central part. Across the country, we found a strong correlation between a microsatellite linked to the high plate ectodysplasin allele and the mitochondrial haplotype from a region where the fully plated phenotype is fixed. Phylogenomic and population genomic analysis of 481 polymorphic amplified fragment length polymorphism loci indicate genetic admixture in the central part of the country. The same part of the country also carries elevated within-population phenotypic variation. We conclude that during the recent invasive range expansion of sticklebacks in Switzerland, adaptive and neutral between-population genetic variation was converted into within-population variation, raising the possibility that hybridization between colonizing lineages contributed to the ecological success of sticklebacks in Switzerland.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE) 08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE) > Aquatic Ecology
UniBE Contributor:	Sivasundar, Arjun, Seehausen, Ole
ISSN:	0962-1083
ISBN:	0962-1083
Publisher:	Wiley-Blackwell
Language:	English
Submitter:	Factscience Import
Date Deposited:	04 Oct 2013 14:17
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2022 14:04
Publisher DOI:	10.1111/j.1365-294X.2010.04781.x
Web of Science ID:	000281797400016
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/5255 (FactScience: 209986)