Natural Hybridization and Genetic Divergence Between the Toads Bufo boreas and Bufo punctatus
Feder JH. 1979. Natural Hybridization and Genetic Divergence Between the Toads Bufo boreas and Bufo punctatus. Evolution. 33(4):1089-1097
Two toad species, Bufo boreas and B punctatus, have parapatric distributions in western North America. They occur together, however, in a desert spring in southeastern California. Discovery of toads morphologically intermediate to the two species suggests that hybridization has occurred. Because intraspecific variation in morphology makes positive identification of hybrids difficult, starch-gel electrophoresis was carried out on 25 individuals of each parental species and four hybrids. The two species exhibit genic divergence corresponding to their morphological divergence. Nei's D between the species at the sympatric locality equals 911. This level of genetic differentiation is greater than any reported for a hybridizing pair of terrestrial vertebrates. In the two species, 12 of 21 loci are allelically distinct, two are polymorphic with the same alleles present, while the remaining seven are fixed for the same allele. All suspected hybrids are heterozygous at the 12 differentiated loci, with both parental alleles present.
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Feder, Juliana
- Units
- DEVA
- Keywords
- Absence (Biodiversity), Abundance (Biodiversity), Amphibia (Amphibians), Animal Studies, Anura (Frogs Toads), Bufo boreas (Western Toad), Bufo punctatus (Red-spotted Toad), Bufonidae (Toads Bufonids), Darwin Canyon Death Valley National Park CA NV, Death Valley National Park CA NV, Distribution (Biodiversity), Genetics, Hybridization, Morphology, Presence (Biodiversity), Taxa Links To Datasets, Taxa Links To References, Vouchers