Swordtail fish hybrids reveal that genome evolution is surprisingly predictable after initial hybridization

Over the past 2 decades, biologists have come to appreciate that hybridization, or genetic exchange between distinct lineages, is remarkably common-not just in particular lineages but in taxonomic groups across the tree of life. As a result, the genomes of many modern species harbor regions inherited from related species. This observation has raised fundamental questions about the degree to which the genomic outcomes of hybridization are repeatable and the degree to which natural selection drives such repeatability. However, a lack of appropriate systems to answer these questions has limited empirical progress in this area. Here, we leverage independently formed hybrid populations between the swordtail fish Xiphophorus birchmanni and X. cortezi to address this fundamental question. We find that local ancestry in one hybrid population is remarkably predictive of local ancestry in another, demographically independent hybrid population. Applying newly developed methods, we can attribute much of this repeatability to strong selection in the earliest generations after initial hybridization. We complement these analyses with time-series data that demonstrates that ancestry at regions under selection has remained stable over the past approximately 40 generations of evolution. Finally, we compare our results to the well-studied X. birchmanni × X. malinche hybrid populations and conclude that deeper evolutionary divergence has resulted in stronger selection and higher repeatability in patterns of local ancestry in hybrids between X. birchmanni and X. cortezi.

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Publication Details

Journal
PLoS Biology
Published
2024-08-26
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002742
Citations
16
Primary Topic
Genetic diversity and population structure
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
8.81

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article

Swordtail fish hybrids reveal that genome evolution is surprisingly predictable after initial hybridization

Carla Gutiérrez‐Rodríguez, Quinn K. Langdon, Tristram O. Dodge, Cheyenne Payne et al.
16 citations
PLoS Biology
Genetic diversity and population structure
8.81
article

Swordtail fish hybrids reveal that genome evolution is surprisingly predictable after initial hybridization

Carla Gutiérrez‐Rodríguez, Quinn K. Langdon, Tristram O. Dodge, Cheyenne Payne, Manfred Schartl, Oscar Ríos-Cárdenas, John J. Baczenas, Jeffrey S. Groh, Stepfanie M. Aguillon, Alexandra Donny, Molly R. Morris, Theresa Gunn, Molly Schumer, Daniel L. Powell, Kang Du
article en
16 citations

Abstract

Over the past 2 decades, biologists have come to appreciate that hybridization, or genetic exchange between distinct lineages, is remarkably common-not just in particular lineages but in taxonomic groups across the tree of life. As a result, the genomes of many modern species harbor regions inherited from related species. This observation has raised fundamental questions about the degree to which the genomic outcomes of hybridization are repeatable and the degree to which natural selection drives such repeatability. However, a lack of appropriate systems to answer these questions has limited empirical progress in this area. Here, we leverage independently formed hybrid populations between the swordtail fish Xiphophorus birchmanni and X. cortezi to address this fundamental question. We find that local ancestry in one hybrid population is remarkably predictive of local ancestry in another, demographically independent hybrid population. Applying newly developed methods, we can attribute much of this repeatability to strong selection in the earliest generations after initial hybridization. We complement these analyses with time-series data that demonstrates that ancestry at regions under selection has remained stable over the past approximately 40 generations of evolution. Finally, we compare our results to the well-studied X. birchmanni × X. malinche hybrid populations and conclude that deeper evolutionary divergence has resulted in stronger selection and higher repeatability in patterns of local ancestry in hybrids between X. birchmanni and X. cortezi.

PLoS BiologyVol. 22(8)
Louisiana State University (US), Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US), Texas State University (US), University of California, Los Angeles (US), University of Würzburg (DE), Ohio University (US), Instituto de Ecología (MX), Centro de Investigaciones Cientifícas de las Huastecas 'Aguazarca' (MX), University of California, Davis (US), Stanford University (US)
National Science Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Stanford University, Ohio University, Australian Government, National Institutes of Health, Directorate for Biological Sciences, Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford University, Stanford Research Computing Center, Stanford University, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, Division of Environmental Biology
Life below water
Openalex Percentile: Top 2%
Genetic diversity and population structure
8.81
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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