Secondary contact zones of closely-related Erebia butterflies overlap with narrow phenotypic and parasitic clines.

Abstract

Zones of secondary contact between closely related taxa are a common legacy of the Quaternary ice ages. Despite their abundance, the factors that keep species apart and prevent hybridization are often unknown. Here, we study a very narrow contact zone between three closely related butterfly species of the Erebia tyndarus species complex. Using genomic data, we first determined whether gene flow occurs and then assessed whether it might be hampered by differences in chromosome number between some species. We found interspecific gene flow between sibling species that differ in karyotype by one chromosome. Conversely, only F1 hybrids occurred between two species that have the same karyotype, forming a steep genomic cline. In a second step, we fitted clines to phenotypic, ecological and parasitic data to identify the factors associated with the genetic cline. We found clines for phenotypic data and the prevalence of the endosymbiont parasite Wolbachia to overlap with the genetic cline, suggesting that they might be drivers for separating the two species. Overall, our results highlight that some gene flow is possible between closely related species despite different chromosome numbers, but that other barriers restrict such gene flow.