Genetic panmixia within a narrow contact zone between chromosomally and ecologically distinct black fly sibling species (Diptera: Simuliidae)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Hybrid zones are windows into the speciation process, and their study can give clues into the maintenance and breakdown of species boundaries. Using both genetic and ecological tools, we investigate lineage diversification across a contact zone characterized by chromosome rearrangements. We show that black fly sibling species, Simulium arcticum sensu stricto (s.s.) and Simulium saxosum, lack genetic differentiation at both microsatellite and mtDNA loci in allopatry and sympatry, as well as exhibit high levels of gene flow and continuous chromosome variation in sympatry. Furthermore, hybrid frequencies at the contact zone are similar to those seen between races, rather than species. In contrast, S. arcticum s.s. and S. saxosum maintain ecological differences and distinct habitat associations - the contact zone situated at the margin of suitable habitat for each sibling species. Moreover, gene flow occurs only in a narrow band along an ecological transition. Except for the contact zone, S. arcticum s.s. and S. saxosum hybrids do not occur elsewhere within the sibling species' ranges. Although S. arcticum s.s. and S. saxosum maintain the potential to interbreed freely, we conclude that habitat associations and, perhaps, chromosome systems prevent expansion of ranges and assimilation of lineages.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".