Selective increase of a rare haplotype in a land snail hybrid zone

摘要

In hybrid zones, which are regions where genetically differentiated populations of organisms meet and produce hybrids, allozyme studies have often revealed unexpected alleles. The cause of this `hybrizyme' or `rare allele' phenomenon has been elusive, although it has been variously ascribed to natural selection or increased mutation rates. If the latter hypothesis is correct, selectively neutral markers should demonstrate increased variability in contrast to expressed markers such as allozymes. In this study, we screened selectively neutral variation in an intron of the calmodulin (CaM) gene in a hybrid zone between two subspecies of the Greek land snail Albinaria hippolyti. In previous allozyme studies, this hybrid zone has been shown to exhibit the rare allele phenomenon. We used a variant of the single-strand conformational polymorphism technique to detect seven haplotypes in both parental taxa. In the zone, one of these occurs at unexpectedly high frequencies. Since no additional mutants were found, we concluded that this is the result of selection.