Journal
EVOLUTION
Volume 68, Issue 5, Pages 1511-1522Publisher
WILEY-BLACKWELL
DOI: 10.1111/evo.12362
Keywords
Gene flow; reproductive barriers; reproductive isolation indexes; speciation
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [DEB-0808447]
- Plant Biology Department
- Graduate School
- College of Natural Sciences at Michigan State University
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Understanding the evolution of reproductive isolation is tantamount to describing the origin of species. Therefore, a primary goal in evolutionary biology is to identify which reproductive barriers are most important to the process. To achieve this goal, the strength of multiple forms of isolation must be compared in an equivalent manner. However, a diversity of methods has been used to estimate barrier strength, falling into several mathematically distinct categories. This study provides a unified method for calculating isolation that relates the amount of gene flow experienced by taxa to random expectations in a simple linear framework. This approach has three distinct advantages over previous methods: (1) it is directly related to gene flow, (2) it is symmetrical, such that measures in both the positive and negative range are comparable, and (3) it is equivalent between broad categories of reproductive isolation, allowing for appropriate comparisons. This linear formulation can be adjusted for use in all forms of isolation, and can accommodate cases in which null expectations for con- and heterospecific gene flow differ. Additionally, this framework can be used to calculate total reproductive isolation and the relative contributions of individual barriers.
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