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Conditions for neutral speciation via isolation by distance. (English) Zbl 1397.92480

Summary: The branching of new species from an ancestral population requires the evolution of reproductive isolation between groups of individuals. Geographic separation of sub-populations by natural barriers, if sustained for sufficiently long times, may lead to the accumulation of independent genetic changes in each group and to mating incompatibilities [E. Mayr, What evolution is. New York, NY: Basic Books (2001); B. M. Fitzpatrick, “Pattern, process and geographic modes of speciation”, J. Evol. Biol. 22, No. 11, 2342–2347 (2009; doi:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2009.01833.x)]. A similar phenomenon may occur in the absence of barriers via isolation by distance if the population is distributed over large areas [M. A. M. de Aguiar et al., “Global patterns of speciation and diversity”, Nature 460, 384–387 (2009); R. S. Etienne and B. Haegeman, “The neutral theory of biodiversity with random fission speciation”, Theor. Ecol. 4, No. 1, 87–109 (2011; doi:10.1007/s12080-010-0076-y); S. Gavrilets et al., “The evolution of female mate choice by sexual conflict”, Proc. R. Soc. B 268, 531–53 (2000; doi:10.1098/rspb.2000.1382)]. The first demonstration of this process was based on computer simulations employing agent-based models. Recently, analytical results were derived combining network theory, to model the spatial structure of the population, and an ansatz that accounts for the effect of forbidding mating between individuals that are too different genetically [M. A. M. de Aguiar and Y. Bar-Yam, “Moran model as a dynamical process on networks and its implications for neutral speciation”, Phys. Rev. E 84, No. 3, Article ID 031901, 10 p. (2011; doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.84.031901)]. The main result obtained with this approach is an expression that indicates when speciation is possible as a function of the parameters describing the population. The aim of this work is to test this analytical result by comparing it with numerical simulations for a hermaphroditic population [de Aguiar et al., loc. cit.] and for a population whose individuals are explicitly separated into males and females [E. M. Baptestini et al., “The role of sex separation in neutral speciation”, J. Theor. Ecol. 6, No. 2, 213–223 (2013; doi:10.1007/s12080-012-0172-2))]. We show that the analytical formula is indeed a very good overall description of the simulations and that the exponents describing dependence of the critical threshold of speciation with the parameters are in good agreement with the simulations.

MSC:

92D15 Problems related to evolution
92D10 Genetics and epigenetics
92D40 Ecology
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