Can the New Combinations of Traits and Genes Responsible for Niche Divergence Be Generated via Hybridization?
One feature of homoploid hybrid speciation that renders it unique relative to most other modes of speciation is the potential for experimental manipulation. Synthetic hybrids between parental taxa can effectively serve as approximations of the ancestral genotype of the hybrid species, in contrast to the situation for most modern species, where the progenitor is unknown or extinct. It is straightforward, therefore, to test whether the traits or trait combinations required for ecological divergence could have been generated by hybridization. The alternative possibility is that the ecological divergence was mostly achieved after speciation through the gradual accumulation of new mutations. As far as we are aware, these experiments have only been carried in two systems: Argyranthemum and Helianthus. Brochman et al. (2000) created synthetic F2 hybrids between Argyranthemum broussonetii and A. frutescens, the putative parents of the homoploid hybrid species A. sundingii, and grew them in the
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