Person:

Campbell-Staton, Shane C.

Phylogeography is experiencing a revolution brought on by next generation sequencing methods. A historical survey of the phylogeographic literature suggests that phylogeography typically incorporates new questions, expanding on its classical domain, when new technologies offer novel or increased numbers of molecular markers. A variety of methods for subsampling genomic variation, including Restriction site associated DNA sequencing (Rad-seq) and other next generation approaches, are proving exceptionally useful in helping define major phylogeographic lineages within species as well as details of historical demography. Next generation methods are also blurring the edges of phylogeography and related fields such as association mapping of loci under selection, and the emerging paradigm is one of simultaneously inferring both population history across geography and genomic targets of selection. However, recent examples, including some from our lab on Anolis lizards and songbirds, suggest that genome subsampling methods, while extremely powerful for the classical goals of phylogeography, may fail to allow phylogeography to fully achieve the goals of this new, expanded domain. Specifically, if genome-wide linkage disequilibrium is low, as is the case in many species with large population sizes, most genome subsampling methods will not sample densely enough to detect selected variants, or variants closely linked to them. We suggest that whole-genome resequencing methods will be essential for allowing phylogeographers to robustly identify loci involved in phenotypic divergence and speciation, while at the same time allowing free choice of molecular markers and further resolution of the demographic history of species.

Anolis carolinensis is an emerging model species and the sole member of its genus native to the United States. Considerable morphological and physiological variation has been described in the species, and the recent sequencing of its genome makes it an attractive system for studies of genome variation. To inform future studies of molecular and phenotypic variation within A. carolinensis, a rigorous account of intraspecific population structure and relatedness is needed. Here, we present the most extensive phylogeographic study of this species to date. Phylogenetic analyses of mitochondrial DNA sequence data support the previous hypothesis of a western Cuban origin of the species. We found five well-supported, geographically distinct mitochondrial haplotype clades throughout the southeastern United States. Most Florida populations fall into one of three divergent clades, whereas the vast majority of populations outside Florida belong to a single, shallowly diverged clade. Genetic boundaries do not correspond to major rivers, but may reflect effects of Pleistocene glaciation events and the Appalachian Mountains on migration and expansion of the species. Phylogeographic signal should be examined using nuclear loci to complement these findings.