Revisiting a classic hybrid zone: movement of the northern flicker hybrid zone in contemporary times
Data files
Feb 28, 2022 version files 180.99 KB
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flicker-scoring-HZonly.txt
38.45 KB
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photo_scores_HZonly.txt
122.96 KB
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README_file.txt
1.01 KB
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scoring_contemporary_input_females.txt
2.14 KB
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scoring_contemporary_input_males.txt
3.72 KB
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scoring_contemporary_input.txt
4.37 KB
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scoring_historic_input_females.txt
2.41 KB
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scoring_historic_input_males.txt
3.31 KB
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scoring_historic_input.txt
2.62 KB
Abstract
Natural hybrid zones have provided important insights into the evolutionary process, and their geographic dynamics over time can help to disentangle the underlying biological processes that maintain them. Here, we leverage replicated sampling of an identical transect across the hybrid zone between yellow-shafted and red-shafted flickers in the Great Plains to assess its stability over ~60 years (1955-1957 to 2016-2018). We identify a ~73 km westward shift in the hybrid zone center towards the range of the red-shafted flicker, but find no associated changes in width over our sampling period. In fact, the hybrid zone remains remarkably narrow, suggesting some kind of selective pressure maintains the zone. By comparing to previous work in the same geographic region, it appears likely that the movement in the hybrid zone has occurred in the years since the early 1980s. This recent movement may be related to changes in climate or land management practices that have allowed asymmetric westward movement of yellow-shafted flickers into the Great Plains.
Usage notes
INCLUDED FILES:
1. scoring_locality_distances.txt = information on sampling localities (unprocessed file)
2. flicker-scoring-HZonly.txt = phenotypic scoring of all samples included in the study (unprocessed file)
3-4. scoring_historic_input.txt / scoring_contempory_input.txt = files produced by processing flicker-scoring-HZonly.txt;
includes the mean and SE of phenotypic scores at each sampling locality for the historic or contemporary sampling period
5-8. scoring_historic_input_males.txt / scoring_historic_input_females.txt / scoring_contemporary_input_males.txt / scoring_contemporary_input_females.txt =
same as above, but separates males and females within the historic or contemporary sampling periods
9. photo_scores_HZonly.txt = ImageJ values from multi-spectral photography of all samples included in the study (unprocessed file)
Data processing scripts are available at https://github.com/stepfanie-aguillon/. Note that file names are consistent with those used in the GitHub Repository.