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Digest: Dispersal reduction drives rapid diversification in alpine grasshoppers
Jessica Fenker1,2, Graham A McCulloch3, Mariana Mira Vasconcellos4
1Division of Ecology & Evolution, Research School of Biology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
Abstract:
Dispersal-associated traits -such as flight ability- influence how species move across the landscape, and can dramatically impact their distributions and patterns of genetic structure. Ortego et al. examine genomic data from two recently diverged alpine grasshopper lineages with distinct wing sizes to assess the demographic impacts of flight loss. The authors showed that flight loss may lead to asymmetric introgression during speciation, and can significantly increase rates of intraspecific diversification.
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