HYBRID ZONES

Hybridization and Hybrid Zones

Several primate taxa show evidence of natural hybridization, and recent genomic analyses of modern and archaic humans have revealed the prevalence of hybridization during the evolutionary history of our own lineage. Thus interest in understanding how natural hybridization occurs in our closest relatives, the nonhuman primates, has grown rapidly. However, studies of the process and dynamics of h...

Hybrids and hybrid zones

Floral biology of hybrid zones

Hybridization between closely related species is relatively common in angiosperms and can create a natural hybrid zone. We review recent experimental studies of floral biology in pairs of hybridizing species, emphasizing comparisons of the floral morphology and nectar rewards of hybrid plants with that of their progenitors, and quantifying the influence of these floral traits on pollinator beha...

Hybrid zones: windows on climate change.

Defining the impacts of anthropogenic climate change on biodiversity and species distributions is currently a high priority. Niche models focus primarily on predicted changes in abiotic factors; however, species interactions and adaptive evolution will impact the ability of species to persist in the face of changing climate. Our review focuses on the use of hybrid zones to monitor responses of ...

On the width of hybrid zones

Hybrid zones occur when two species are found in close proximity and interbreeding occurs, but the species characteristics remain distinct. These systems have been treated in the biology literature using partial differential equations models. Here we investigate a stochastic spatial model and prove the existence of a stationary distribution that represents the hybrid zone in equilibrium. We cal...