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Natural selection can IMPEDE new species?

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stick insects/Rosa Marin

From ScienceDaily:

The team studied a plant-eating stick insect species from California called Timema cristinae known for its cryptic camouflage that allows it to hide from hungry birds, said CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Samuel Flaxman. T. cristinae comes in several different types — one is green and blends in with the broad green leaves of a particular shrub species, while a second green variant sports a white, vertical stripe that helps disguise it on a different species of shrub with narrow, needle-like leaves.

While Darwinian natural selection has begun pushing the two green forms of walking sticks down separate paths that could lead to the formation of two new species, the team found that a third melanistic, or brown variation of T. cristinae appears to be thwarting the process, said Flaxman. The brown version is known to successfully camouflage itself among the stems of both shrub species inhabited by its green brethren, he said.

Using field investigations, laboratory genetics, modern genome sequencing and computer simulations, the team concluded the brown version of T. cristinae is shuttling enough genes between the green stick insects living on different shrubs to prevent strong divergent adaptation and speciation.

The new results underscore how combining natural history and cutting-edge genetics can help researchers gain a better understanding of how evolution operates in nature. It also shows how natural selection can sometimes promote but other times hinder the formation of new species, according to the research team. More.

So, in addition to all the problems with merely trivial displays of evidence for Darwinian evolution producing new species, it can actually get in the way? of speciation?

Sell your stock in Darwin.

Summary

The interplay between selection and aspects of the genetic architecture of traits (such as linkage, dominance, and epistasis) can either drive or constrain speciation [ 1–3 ]. Despite accumulating evidence that speciation can progress to “intermediate” stages—with populations evolving only partial reproductive isolation—studies describing selective mechanisms that impose constraints on speciation are more rare than those describing drivers. The stick insect Timema cristinae provides an example of a system in which partial reproductive isolation has evolved between populations adapted to different host plant environments, in part due to divergent selection acting on a pattern polymorphism [ 4, 5 ]. Here, we demonstrate how selection on a green/melanistic color polymorphism counteracts speciation in this system. Specifically, divergent selection between hosts does not occur on color phenotypes because melanistic T. cristinae are cryptic on the stems of both host species, are resistant to a fungal pathogen, and have a mating advantage. Using genetic crosses and genome-wide association mapping, we quantify the genetic architecture of both the pattern and color polymorphism, illustrating their simple genetic control. We use these empirical results to develop an individual-based model that shows how the melanistic phenotype acts as a “genetic bridge” that increases gene flow between populations living on different hosts. Our results demonstrate how variation in the nature of selection acting on traits, and aspects of trait genetic architecture, can impose constraints on both local adaptation and speciation. (paywall) – Aaron A. Comeault, Samuel M. Flaxman, Rüdiger Riesch, Emma Curran, Víctor Soria-Carrasco, Zachariah Gompert, Timothy E. Farkas, Moritz Muschick, Thomas L. Parchman, Tanja Schwander, Jon Slate, Patrik Nosil. Selection on a Genetic Polymorphism Counteracts Ecological Speciation in a Stick Insect. Current Biology, 2015; 25 (15): 1975 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2015.05.058

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Comments
Natural selection is impotent. It is very good at impeding progress.Virgil Cain
August 9, 2015
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Natural Selection can do whatever it wishes. Its powers are greater than even those of God, who cannot do the impossible. No wonder Natural Selection is worshiped as the modern replacement for the God of the past.Mung
August 9, 2015
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