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Originally published in Science Express on 7 August 2003
Science 29 August 2003:
Vol. 301. no. 5637, pp. 1211 - 1216
DOI: 10.1126/science.1086949
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Research Articles

Major Ecological Transitions in Wild Sunflowers Facilitated by Hybridization

Loren H. Rieseberg,1* Olivier Raymond,2 David M. Rosenthal,3 Zhao Lai,1 Kevin Livingstone,1 Takuya Nakazato,1 Jennifer L. Durphy,1 Andrea E. Schwarzbach,4 Lisa A. Donovan,3 Christian Lexer1

Hybridization is frequent in many organismal groups, but its role in adaptation is poorly understood. In sunflowers, species found in the most extreme habitats are ancient hybrids, and new gene combinations generated by hybridization are speculated to have contributed to ecological divergence. This possibility was tested through phenotypic and genomic comparisons of ancient and synthetic hybrids. Most trait differences in ancient hybrids could be recreated by complementary gene action in synthetic hybrids and were favored by selection. The same combinations of parental chromosomal segments required to generate extreme phenotypes in synthetic hybrids also occurred in ancient hybrids. Thus, hybridization facilitated ecological divergence in sunflowers.

1 Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA. 2 Laboratoire de Biologie Moleculaire et Phytochimie, Universite Claude Bernard Lyon 1, F-69622 Villeurbanne, France. 3 Department of Plant Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA. 4 Department of Biological Sciences, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: lriesebe{at}indiana.edu

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