Cryptic speciation and gene flow in a migratory songbird Species Complex: Insights from the Red-Eyed Vireo (Vireo olivaceus)

Abstract

Migratory species that alternate between sympatry and allopatry over the course of an annual cycle are promising subjects for studies seeking to understand the process of speciation in the absence of strict geographic isolation. Here we sought to identify cryptic species and assess rates of gene flow in a clade of neotropical migrant songbirds in which geography and taxonomy are currently out of sync: the Red-Eyed Vireo (V. olivaceus) Species Complex. Phylogenetic, clustering, and statistical species delimitation analyses found that V. olivaceusincludes two non-sister lineages migrating in opposite directions across the equator. Analyses of gene flow identified low levels of introgression between two species pairs, but none between northern and southern olivaceus. We also identified substantial well-supported conflicts between nuclear and mitochondrial topologies. Although the geographic distribution of mito-nuclear discordance is suggestive of hybridization and mitochondrial capture, we found no evidence of introgression in the nuclear genome of populations with discordant mitochondrial gene trees. Our study finds that species boundaries match breeding range and migratory phenology rather than the existing taxonomy in this group, and demonstrates the utility of genomic data in inferring species boundaries in recently diverged clades.

Keywords: Birds; Genomics; Hybridization; Migration; Phylogenetics; Phylogeography; Speciation; Systematics.