Population divergence and speciation

As populations evolve, chance and natural selection drive them apart. We have contributed to our understanding of the speciation process in two ways. First, by defining how speciation can leave genetic signatures that can confound statistical searches for natural selection and developing methods to quantify these potential confounders. Second, by describing how the divergence process uncovers the dramatic extent to which genetic interactions are present throughout the genome.

We have characterized these antagonistic interactions, manifest in the dysregulation of gene expression and inviability of hybrids. We found evidence of widespread antagonistic interactions among multiple loci involved in genetic incompatibility, which could have critical consequences for the tempo of speciation by decoupling the accumulation of isolation loci and phenotypes, therefore attenuating the rate of accumulation of hybrid infertility among lineages.