Multispecies Coalescent Delimits Structure, Not Species
Multispecies coalescent delimits structure, not species Jeet Sukumarana,1,2 and L. Lacey Knowlesa,1 aDepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI 48109-1079 Edited by David M. Hillis, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, and approved December 29, 2016 (received for review May 23, 2016) The multispecies coalescent model underlies many approaches consequence, the increased resolution of genomic data makes it used for species delimitation. In previous work assessing the per- possible to not only detect divergent species lineages, but also formance of species delimitation under this model, speciation was local population structure within them—that is, a fractal hierar- treated as an instantaneous event rather than as an extended chy of divergences. process involving distinct phases of speciation initiation (struc- Misidentification of population structure as putative species turing) and completion. Here, we use data under simulations is therefore emerging as a key issue (8) that has received insuf- that explicitly model speciation as an extended process rather ficient attention, especially with respect to methodologies for than an instantaneous event and carry out species delimitation delimiting taxa based on genetic data alone. Because species inference on these data under the multispecies coalescent. We delimitation is inextricably linked to patterns of species diversity, show that the multispecies coalescent diagnoses genetic struc- the models used to delimit species are not just limited to issues ture, not species, and that it does not statistically distinguish about species boundaries, but are also paramount to understand- structure associated with population isolation vs. species bound- ing the generation and dynamics of biodiversity (9–12).
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