Complex patterns of gene flow and convergence in the evolutionary history of the spiral-horned antelopes (Tragelaphini)

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The Tragelaphini, also known as spiral-horned antelope, is a phenotypically diverse mammalian tribe comprising a single genus, Tragelaphus. The evolutionary history of this tribe has attracted the attention of taxonomists and molecular geneticists for decades because its diversity is characterised by conflicts between morphological and molecular data as well as between mitochondrial, nuclear and chromosomal DNA. These inconsistencies point to a complex history of ecological diversification, coupled by either phenotypic convergence or introgression. Therefore, to unravel the phylogenetic relationships among spiral-horned antelopes, and to further investigate the role of divergence and gene flow in trait evolution, we sequenced genomes for all nine accepted species of the genus Tragelaphus, including a genome each for the highly divergent bushbuck lineages (T. s. scriptus and T. s. sylvaticus). We successfully reconstructed the Tragelaphus species tree, providing genome-level support for the early Pliocene divergence and monophyly of the nyala (T. angasii) and lesser kudu (T. imberbis), the monophyly of the two eland species (T. oryx and T. derbianus) and, importantly, the monophyly of kéwel (T. s. scriptus) and imbabala (T. s. sylvaticus) bushbuck. We found strong evidence for gene flow in at least four of eight nodes on the species tree. Among the six phenotypic traits assessed here, only habitat type mapped onto the species tree without homoplasy, showing that trait evolution was the result of complex patterns of divergence, introgression and convergent evolution.