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  • Review Article
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Speciation genetics: evolving approaches

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 7, pages 851–861 (2006)Cite this article

Key Points

  • The genetic study of speciation was pioneered by conceptual insights from the 1930s that still hold today.

  • Recent studies have recreated or dissolved species, providing investigators with the means for generating and testing evolutionary hypotheses about species divergence and the nature of barriers to gene flow between them.

  • New analytical approaches provide the means for inferring historical processes that have operated on species, and particularly for the detection of historical interspecies gene flow (introgression).

  • High-throughput molecular approaches allow investigators to quickly generate whole-genome 'snapshots' of sequence or regulatory divergence between divergent populations or species, in order to generate or test hypotheses.

  • Technological advances in direct gene manipulation afford investigators with the means to achieve the final standard of proof for whether particular loci contribute to specific adaptations or reproductive incompatibilities.

  • Although new technologies are facilitating the acquisition of data for understanding speciation, they are not generally by themselves providing new insights; many of them are merely helping researchers to generate hypotheses that need to be confirmed by 'old-school' reductionist bench work.

Abstract

Much progress has been made in the past two decades in understanding Darwin's mystery of the origins of species. Applying genomic techniques to the analysis of laboratory crosses and natural populations has helped to determine the genetic basis of barriers to gene flow which create new species. Although new methodologies have not changed the prevailing hypotheses about how species form, they have accelerated the pace of data collection. By facilitating the compilation of case studies, advances in genetic techniques will help to provide answers to the next generation of questions concerning the relative frequency and importance of different processes that cause speciation.

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Acknowledgements

We thank N. Johnson, J. P. Masly, D. Presgraves, M. Taylor and anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on this manuscript. Our research programmes are funded by grants from the US National Science Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. DCMB Group/Biology Department, Duke University, BOX 91000, Durham, 27708, North Carolina, USA

    Mohamed A. F. Noor

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Galvin Life Science Center, PO BOX 369, Notre Dame, 46556-0369, Indiana, USA

    Jeffrey L. Feder

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Glossary

Gene flow

The movement of alleles between local populations that is due to the migration of individuals.

Hybrid zone

A location where the hybrid offspring of two divergent, partially geographically overlapping groups are prevalent. Hybrid zones are sometimes stable for many generations and there is often variation in the fitness of hybrids within the zone.

Genomic conflict

Competition within a genome for transmission to or success of gametes.

Introgression

The movement of alleles from one species into the gene pool of another through repeated backcrossing of an interspecies hybrid with one of the parent species.

Backcross

The mating of an individual with its parent, or with an individual of the same genotype as its parent, to follow the inheritance of alleles and phenotypes.

Transplant studies

Studies in which organisms are moved from a native to an introduced setting to examine the effects of the environment or of related species.

Admixture

The mixing of genetically differentiated groups.

Cline

The gradual change of a genotype or phenotype in a species over a geographical area that is often associated with an environmental gradient.

Divergence-with-gene-flow speciation

Speciation that progresses without the complete absence of gene exchange between diverging taxa. This type of speciation includes but is not limited to sympatric speciation.

Sympatric speciation

Speciation through divergence in geographically overlapping taxa.

Hybrid speciation

Hybridization between two species gives rise to a new, pure-breeding taxon.

Pyrosequencing

A method for DNA sequencing, in which the inorganic pyrophosphate that is released from a nucleoside triphosphate on DNA chain elongation is detected by a bioluminometric assay.

Microspheres

(Also known as microparticles or microbeads). Small 1–100 μm diameter particles that are used as solid supports in bioassays. They can carry a probe or primer, and can contain internal magnetic compounds to allow magnetic separation or internal fluorescent compounds for labelling.

Nested clade analysis

A coalescent approach to disentangling the effects of long-term population history from gene flow by reconstructing the sequence of events that have generated the current genetic pattern among populations within a species.

FST

A measure of population subdivision that is based on genetic polymorphism data derived from comparing the genetic variability within and between populations.

GST

An extension of the FST measure for multiple alleles, where GST is equal to the weighted average of FST for all alleles.

DArT

Short for 'diversity arrays technology'; this is a technique for analysing DNA polymorphism, which is based on hybridization to microarrays, that does not require DNA sequence information.

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Noor, M., Feder, J. Speciation genetics: evolving approaches. Nat Rev Genet 7, 851–861 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg1968

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