Department of Genetics, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, PoBox 15053, Porto Alegre, 91501-970, Brazil.
Department of Botany, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Sci Rep. 2024 Nov 14;14(1):27989. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-79584-9.
Natural hybridisation in plants can impact genetic and morphological diversity, including the emergence of better-adapted new populations and the potential extinction of some lineages involved in this intricate process. Under progressive global warming, species often need to migrate to newly suitable areas, which may be an additional challenge for species with low dispersal ability. Throughout the search for new environments, previously allopatric lineages can come into secondary contact and eventually hybridise if reproductive isolation is incomplete. Here, we focused on two taxa representing the natural herbaceous component of southern South American lowland grasslands. We aimed to evaluate the impact of contact zones and potential hybridisation on the evolutionary relationships and population dynamics. We used single nucleotide polymorphisms and morphological data of multiple individuals from allopatric and contact zones between taxa to shed light on hybridisation patterns and demographic scenarios. Our results indicated that the contact zones impact taxa's genetic and morphological diversity, and each contact zone had different patterns of genetic diversity and morphology, constituting stable populations that potentially reflect hybridisation events occurring at distinct evolutionary times.
植物中的自然杂交可以影响遗传和形态多样性，包括出现更好适应的新种群，以及参与这一复杂过程的一些谱系的潜在灭绝。在全球变暖的情况下，物种通常需要迁移到新的适宜区域，而对于扩散能力低的物种来说，这可能是一个额外的挑战。在寻找新环境的过程中，以前的地理隔离谱系可以再次接触，如果生殖隔离不完全，最终可能会杂交。在这里，我们关注了代表南美低地草原草本成分的两个分类群。我们旨在评估接触区和潜在杂交对进化关系和种群动态的影响。我们使用了来自分类群的地理隔离和接触区的多个个体的单核苷酸多态性和形态数据，以揭示杂交模式和种群动态的情景。我们的结果表明，接触区影响了分类群的遗传和形态多样性，每个接触区都有不同的遗传多样性和形态模式，构成了稳定的种群，这些种群可能反映了在不同进化时间发生的杂交事件。
