Genomic Displacement and Shift of the Hybrid Zone in the Japanese Fire-Bellied Newt

Hybridizations on a secondary contact zone between 2 diverged lineages can have various evolutionary consequences, including the genetic replacement of one lineage by another. We detected such a case between 2 lineages (the Central and Western lineages) of the Japanese fire-bellied newt, Cynops pyrrhogaster in the Chugoku district of western Japan. We genotyped 269 individuals from 30 localities using the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene and 11 microsatellite loci. The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis revealed that the 2 lineages were mostly distributed parapatrically to each other but co-occurred around the contact zone, whereas the microsatellite analyses indicated the presence of a hybrid zone. Geographic cline analysis revealed that the cline width of mtDNA is wider than the width of the microsatellite loci. The migration rate estimation and the NewHybrids analysis revealed that the Central lineage has expanded their range into the range of the hybrid zone, suggesting the possibility of range displacement of the 2 lineages as a consequence of the shift of their hybrid zone. We explored the process of asymmetric gene flow associated with the invasion of the Central lineage to explain this pattern.