The Propagation of Admixture-derived Evolutionary Potential (IMAGE)
Caption
Examples where hybridization-derived genetic variation can and cannot spread to different areas. (a) Two regions (lakes) are connected by a single path (river). In this case, genetic variation generated through hybridization in one lake cannot spread to the other lake because natural selection by the river environment removes a large fraction of genetic variation from the population expanding along the river to the second lake. (b) Two lakes are connected by two geographically isolated rivers. While genetic variation is lost in both populations expanding along two rivers, they can form genetically distinct sub-lineages. This is because different sets of alleles can fix in the two populations if the same optimal phenotype in the river environment can be generated by multiple different combinations of genes. The secondary admixture between sub-lineages in the second lake can restore old genetic variation that had originally been generated in the other lake through the past hybridization event.
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Tohoku University
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Credit: Tohoku University
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