Estimating the frequency of hybridization is important to understand its evolutionary consequences and its effects on conservation efforts. In this study, we examined the extent of hybridization in two sister species of ducks that hybridize. We used mitochondrial control region sequences and 3589 double‐digest restriction‐associated DNA sequences (dd RAD seq) to identify admixture between wild lesser scaup ( Aythya affinis ) a...

Many species have Holarctic distributions that extend across Europe, Asia and North America. Most genetics research on these species has examined only mitochondrial (mt) DNA , which has revealed wide variance in divergence between Old World ( OW ) and New World ( NW ) populations, ranging from shallow, unstructured genealogies to deeply divergent lineages. In this study, we sequenced 20 nuclear introns to test for concordant p...

Speciation is a process in which genetic drift and selection cause divergence over time. However, there is no rule dictating the time required for speciation, and even low levels of gene flow hinder divergence, so that taxa may be poised at the threshold of speciation for long periods of evolutionary time. We sequenced mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and eight nuclear introns (nuDNA) to estimate genomic levels of differentiation and...