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interaction between linked selection and recombination rate variation can explain the presence of
IoDs in genomic comparisons. This has led some authors to distinguish between "incidental" IoDs
formed by linked selection in regions of low recombination but irrelevant for the speciation process
and true IoDs that harbour loci involved in reproductive isolation that are resistant to gene flow
(Poelstra et al. 2014; Vijay et al. 2016). However, in this study we uncover evidence that IoDs that are
found in regions of low recombination and appear to be resistant to gene flow in sympatry,
indicating that the genome architecture is important in the formation of barriers to gene flow. The
pervasiveness of this mechanism in nature is unclear. It is possible that a narrow set of conditions is
required to generate IoDs with elevated
d
XY
indicating that there is often low statistical
power to
identify IoDs with elevated
d
XY
, particularly for species with short divergence times (Cruickshank and
Hahn 2014). It is therefore possible that differential gene flow between the genomes of young
species is more common than expected based on analysis of IoDs in pairwise genome comparisons.
As there is no evidence that gene flow is ongoing between these species it was not possible to
directly measure its effects across the genome. However, this study is consistent with a growing
number of others indicating that selection against gene flow between incipient species can be highly
polygenic, and strongly influenced by genome architecture (Michel et al. 2010;
Coughlan and Matute
2020). It also supports a multitude of recent genome-wide studies that attest to the pervasiveness of
gene flow and permeability of species barriers in nature.
Conclusion
We compared variation across the genomes of two recently-diverged cryptic bumblebee species
living in sympatry. This comparison revealed the presence of restricted genomic islands (IoD) with
elevated levels of absolute divergence (
d
XY
). This pattern suggests that the two species diverged
under conditions of gene flow, which was restricted in regions of low recombination close to
centromeres. These results imply that recombination rate variation could often be a crucial factor in
determining the location of genomic barriers to gene flow between incipient species. We speculate
that climatic fluctuations could be an important driver of speciation by this process in bumblebees
with high-altitude habitats, whereby periods of warming lead to periodic population fragmentation
at higher altitudes followed by secondary contact and differentiation under gene flow.
Methods
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