Genetic Variation at Nuclear Loci Fails to Distinguish Two Morphologically Distinct Species of Aquilegia

Aquilegia formosa and pubescens are two closely related species belonging to the columbine genus. Despite their morphological and ecological differences, previous studies have revealed a large degree of intercompatibility, as well as little sequence divergence between these two taxa [1], [2]. We compared the inter- and intraspecific patterns of variation for 9 nuclear loci, and found that the two species were practically indistinguishable at the level of DNA sequence polymorphism, indicating either very recent speciation or continued gene flow. As a comparison, we also analyzed variation at two loci across 30 other Aquilegia taxa; this revealed slightly more differentiation among taxa, which seemed best explained by geographic distance. By contrast, we found no evidence for isolation by distance on a more local geographic scale. We conclude that the extremely low levels of genetic differentiation between A. formosa and A.pubescens at neutral loci will facilitate future genome-wide scans for speciation genes.