Figures
Contemporary parallel evolution by reassembly of anciently diverged alleles.
The drawing depicts the importance of admixture for fast and repeated evolution of two ecotypes of the saltmarsh beetle Pogonus chalceus. Long- and short-winged ecotypes of P. chalceus have diverged repeatedly along the Atlantic European coast in response to contrasting hydrological regimes. The repeated evolution is driven by an initial ancient and singular divergence of the short-winged ecotype, after which it admixed with the ancestral long-winged population. This admixture resulted in a polymorphic population that survived during the most recent glacial maxima and from which both ecotypes currently diverge rapidly and repeatedly by the reassembly of these ancient alleles when habitats become available. See Van Belleghem et al.
Download November's cover page.
Image Credit: Steven M. Van Belleghem and Frederik Hendrickx
Citation: (2018) PLoS Genetics Issue Image | Vol. 14(11) November 2018. PLoS Genet 14(11): ev14.i11. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pgen.v14.i11
Published: November 30, 2018
Copyright: © 2018 Van Belleghem, Hendrickx. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
The drawing depicts the importance of admixture for fast and repeated evolution of two ecotypes of the saltmarsh beetle Pogonus chalceus. Long- and short-winged ecotypes of P. chalceus have diverged repeatedly along the Atlantic European coast in response to contrasting hydrological regimes. The repeated evolution is driven by an initial ancient and singular divergence of the short-winged ecotype, after which it admixed with the ancestral long-winged population. This admixture resulted in a polymorphic population that survived during the most recent glacial maxima and from which both ecotypes currently diverge rapidly and repeatedly by the reassembly of these ancient alleles when habitats become available. See Van Belleghem et al.
Download November's cover page.
Image Credit: Steven M. Van Belleghem and Frederik Hendrickx