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Ecogeographic isolation: a reproductive barrier between species and between cytotypes in Houstonia (Rubiaceae)

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Abstract

‘Ecogeographic isolation’ describes the combined role of ecology and geography as a reproductive barrier, and an important component in speciation. Evidence increasingly shows that this form of isolation is important for maintaining the genetic integrity of populations and species. Further, ecogeographic isolation can be a reproductive barrier between polyploid individuals and their diploid progenitors. New ecoinformatic methods, which includes niche modeling and associated statistical assessments of these models with spatially explicit environmental data, allow us to test if ecogeographic isolation is a contributing isolating barrier between species and between cytotypes within a species. We tested the hypothesis that ecogeographic isolation contributes to isolation of species and cytotypes within species of the plant genus Houstonia. We found that species in this group occupied significantly different niches, which suggests ecogeographic isolation is a contributing reproductive barrier. We also found that diploid and tetraploid forms of H. longifolia show some level of ecogeographic isolation, but H. purpurea diploids and tetraploids did not. Our results suggest that ecogeographic isolation plays a role in reproductive isolation between Houstonia species and between cytotypes of H. longifolia.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank R. Olsen for his guidance for the flow cytometry analyses, D. Warren for his help with the ENMTools analyses, and K. Costantini for help with data collection. This manuscript benefited from insightful comments from anonymous reviewers and helpful discussions with J.J. Apodaca, J. Choiniere, J. Lill, M. Dudash, and G. Wimp. This research was funded by an NSF grant (DEB0816681) to SAC and a New England Botanical Society Graduate Research Award to KLG.

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  1. K. L. Glennon

    Present address: Department of Biology, Syracuse University, 107 College Place, Syracuse, NY, 13244, USA

  2. S. A. Church

    Present address: Global Wildlife Conservation, PO Box 129, Austin, TX, 78767, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, The George Washington University, 2023 G St. NW, Suite 340, Washington, DC, 20052-0086, USA

    K. L. Glennon & S. A. Church

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama, Box 870345, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35487, USA

    L. J. Rissler

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  1. K. L. Glennon
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Correspondence to K. L. Glennon.

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Appendix 1

See Table 4.

Table 4 Nineteen environmental layers downloaded from WorldClim (www.worldclim.org) that were used in niche modeling and identity test comparisons
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Glennon, K.L., Rissler, L.J. & Church, S.A. Ecogeographic isolation: a reproductive barrier between species and between cytotypes in Houstonia (Rubiaceae). Evol Ecol 26, 909–926 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-011-9539-x

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