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Different Diversification Rates Between Sexual and Asexual Organisms

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Abstract

Patterns of diversity reflect the balance between speciation and extinction over time. Here we estimate net diversification rates for samples of sexual and asexual rotifers using phylogenetic reconstructions from sequence data of one mtDNA locus, cytochrome oxidase c subunit I. All four clades of bdelloid rotifers, obligate asexuals, had higher number of species per clade and significantly higher accumulation of diversification events towards the root of the trees than the four clades of their sexual relatives, the monogonont rotifers. Such differences were robust to confounding effects of number of analysed sequences, haplotype diversity, overall genetic divergence, age of the clades or geographic coverage. Our results support the idea that differences in diversification rates could thus be ascribed to different mechanisms of speciation, with ecological speciation as the most plausible mechanism for asexual organisms.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Biology, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Ascot Berkshire, SL5 7PY, UK

    Diego Fontaneto, Cuong Q. Tang, Francesca Leasi & Timothy G. Barraclough

  2. Sustainable Agro-ecosystems and Bioresources Department, Edmund Mach Foundation, IASMA Research and Innovation Centre, Via E. Mach 2, 38010, San Michele all’Adige, TN, Italy

    Ulrike Obertegger

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  1. Diego Fontaneto
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  2. Cuong Q. Tang
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  3. Ulrike Obertegger
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  4. Francesca Leasi
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  5. Timothy G. Barraclough
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Correspondence to Diego Fontaneto.

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Fontaneto, D., Tang, C.Q., Obertegger, U. et al. Different Diversification Rates Between Sexual and Asexual Organisms. Evol Biol 39, 262–270 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-012-9161-z

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