A new paper in PLoS Computational Biology relates speciation rate and graph theory
A new paper by Melian et al. explores speciation rates when the genome of individuals is explicitly modeled. In this model, two individuals can reproduce if their genetic similarity is sufficiently high. This idea draws a connection between speciation and graph theory: species are components of a “mating graph”.
Here’s the Authors’ summary:
Ecological opportunity, or filling a pre-existing unoccupied adaptive zone, is considered the dominant mechanism explaining the initial explosion of diversity. Although this type of niche filling can explain rates of diversification in some lineages, it is not sufficient for a radiation to occur. Instead of attributing the propensity to have an explosion of new species to external influences like niche availability, an alternative hypothesis can be based in frequency-dependent selection driven by the ecology in which organisms are embedded or endogenous sources mediated by gametes during fertilization. We show that genome diversification driven by higher reproductive probability of rare genotypes generates rapid initial speciation followed by a plateau with very low speciation rates, as shown by most empirical data. The absence of advantage of rare genotypes generates speciation events at constant rates. We predict decline over time and constant speciation rate in the cichlids and Darwin’s finches, respectively, thus providing an alternative hypothesis for the origin of radiations and biodiversity in the absence of pre-existing niche filling. In addition to predicting observed temporal trends in diversification, our analysis also highlights new mechanistic models of evolutionary biodiversity dynamics that may become suitable to generate neutral models for testing observed patterns in speciation rates and species diversity.