Background: Co-dispersal of sperm-dependent hybrids and their sexual relatives is expected to result in consistent spatial patterns between assemblages of hybrids and genetic structure of parental species. However, local hybridization events may blur this signal as assemblages could be organized under different connectivity constraints. This study aims at testing the hypothesis of local hybridization events by comparing the assemblage of hybrid fish Chrosomus eos-neogaeus to the genetic diversity of one of its parental species, Chrosomus eos.
Results: An extensive survey performed on a total of 132 sites located in two regions of Southern Quebec (West-Qc and East-Qc) revealed a distinct organization of hybrid lineages. One of the six hybrid lineages detected in West-Qc is widespread throughout this region resulting in a low α-diversity (1.38) and β-diversity (4.35). On the other hand, 36 hybrid lineages were detected in East-Qc and displayed narrow geographic distributions leading to a high α-diversity (2.30) and β-diversity (15.68). In addition, the C. eos multilocus haplotype of several of these hybrids is assigned to their respective sympatric C. eos population. Finally, contrasting with hybrids, the paternal species C. eos displayed a higher ρST in West-Qc (0.2300) than in East-Qc (0.0734).
Conclusion: The unusually high diversity of hybrid lineages in East-Qc as well as the spatial organization and the close genetic relationship with C. eos sympatric populations support the hypothesis that multiple hybridization events occurred in situ. These findings coupled to the near absence of the maternal species Chrosomus neogeaus suggest that the decline of this species could be the trigger event at the origin of the high rates of spontaneous hybridization in this region.
Keywords: Chrosomus eos-neogaeus; Gynogenesis; Host-parasite; Local hybridization events; Population genetics; Spatial autocorrelation; Sperm-dependence.