Divergent island hybrids mixed waves of ancient gene flow.

Abstract

In this issue of Molecular Ecology, Salter etal.(2023) discovered that the Cuban Northern Bobwhite subspecies, Colinus virginianus cubanensis (Gould,1850), is an ancient hybrid population formed due to historical hybridization potentially brought by waves of historical human migration. This study revealed a complex mixture of gene flow from distinct spatiotemporal origins underlying a seemingly semi-independent evolutionary trajectory. Hybridization can be more common and complex than we thought.