Effects of specialization on genetic differentiation in sister species of bark beetles

We investigated the relative importance of resource use and geography on genetic differentiation in the sister-species pair of generalist and specialist bark beetles: Dendroctonus ponderosae and D. jeffreyi (Coleoptera: Scolytidae). In two regions, where the distributions of these species overlap, we collected specimens of the generalist from multiple host species and specimens of the specialist from its single host species. Using allozyme techniques, we uncovered genetic differentiation between generalist populations on different host species in the same region (one locus in each region). However, a much stronger pattern of differentiation was found between specialist populations in the two distantly separated regions (three loci). With mtDNA, we found no significant differentiation between regions in the specialist, or among host species in the generalist, although there was some differentiation between regions in the generalist (AMOVA, P < 0.05). Overall, the generalist populations maintained approximately 10 times the genetic variation in mtDNA as the specialist populations, which suggests that the specialist either has generally smaller population sizes than the generalist, or has experienced a historical population bottleneck.