Expansion of frozen hybrids in the guppy ectoparasite, Gyrodactylus turnbulli

Hybridization is one of the major factors contributing to the emergence of highly successful parasites. Hybrid vigour can play an important role in this process, but subsequent rounds of recombination in the hybrid population may dilute its effects. Increased fitness of hybrids can, however, be froz...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inMolecular ecology Vol. 30; no. 4; pp. 1005 - 1016
Main Authors Konczal, Mateusz, Przesmycka, Karolina J., Mohammed, Ryan S., Hahn, Christoph, Cable, Jo, Radwan, Jacek
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.02.2021
John Wiley and Sons Inc
Subjects
Animals
Asexual reproduction
clonal reproduction
Ectoparasites
Fish Diseases
Genomes
Genotypes
Gyrodactylus
Gyrodactylus turnbulli
heterosis
Heterozygosity
Hybrid vigor
Hybridization
Hybrids
invasion
Natural populations
Nucleotides
Original Aricle
ORIGINAL ARTICLES
Parasites
Poecilia - genetics
Populations
Recombination
Reproduction
Trematoda - genetics
Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago
heterosis
Gyrodactylus
invasion
hybridization
clonal reproduction
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Summary:Hybridization is one of the major factors contributing to the emergence of highly successful parasites. Hybrid vigour can play an important role in this process, but subsequent rounds of recombination in the hybrid population may dilute its effects. Increased fitness of hybrids can, however, be frozen by asexual reproduction. Here, we identify invasion of a ‘frozen hybrid’ genotype in natural populations of Gyrodactylus turnbulli, a facultatively sexual ectoparasitic flatworm that causes significant damage to its fish host. We resequenced genomes of these parasites infecting guppies from six Trinidad and Tobago populations, and found surprisingly high discrepancy in genome‐wide nucleotide diversity between islands. The elevated heterozygosity on Tobago is maintained by predominantly clonal reproduction of hybrids formed from two diverged genomes. Hybridization has been followed by spread of the hybrids across the island, implying a selective advantage compared with native genotypes. Our results thus highlight that a single outcrossing event may be independently sufficient to cause pathogen expansion.
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ISSN:0962-1083
1365-294X
DOI:10.1111/mec.15781