Natural hybridization between two butterfly bushes in Tibet: dominance of F1 hybrids promotes strong reproductive isolation

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundIt has been recognized that a certain amount of habitat disturbance is a facilitating factor for the occurrence of natural hybridization, yet to date we are unaware of any studies exploring hybridization and reproductive barriers in those plants preferentially occupying disturbed habitats.Buddlejaplants (also called butterfly bush) generally do grow in disturbed habitats, and several species with hybrid origin have been proposed, based solely on morphological evidence.ResultsIn the present study, we test the hypothesis thatB. × wardiiis of natural hybridization origin in two sympatric populations of three taxa includingB. × wardiiand its parents (B. alternifoliaandB. crispa) plus 4 referenced parental populations, using four nuclear genes and three chloroplast intergenic spacers, as well as with 10 morphological characters. Our results suggest that at both sitesB. × wardiiis likely to be a hybrid betweenB. alternifoliaandB. crispa, and moreover, we confirm that most of the hybrids examined are F1s. That these plants are F1s is further supported by morphology, as no transgressive characters were detected.B. crispawas found to be the maternal parent in the Bahe (BH) population, from cpDNA evidence. However, in the Taji (TJ) population, the direction of hybridization was difficult to establish due to the shared cpDNA haplotypes betweenB. alternifoliaandB. crispa, however we still predicted a similar unidirectional hybridization pattern due to results from cross-specific pollination treatments which supported the “SI × SC rule”.ConclusionsThe presence of mainly F1hybrids can successfully impede gene flow and thus maintain species boundaries in parental species in a typical distribution ofBuddleja, i.e. in disturbed habitats.