Repeated migration, interbreeding and bottlenecking shaped the phylogeography of the selfing grass Brachypodium stacei

Brachypodium stacei is the most ancestral lineage in the genus Brachypodium, a model system for grass functional genomics. B. stacei shows striking and sometimes contradictory biological and evolutionary features, including a high selfing rate yet extensive admixture, an ancient Miocene origin yet with recent evolutionary radiation, and adaptation to different dry climate conditions in its narrow distribution range. Therefore, it constitutes an ideal system to study these life history traits. We studied the phylogeography of 17 native circum-Mediterranean B. stacei populations (39 individuals) using genome-wide RADseq SNP data and complete plastome sequences. Nuclear SNP data revealed the existence of six distinct genetic clusters, low levels of intra-population genetic diversity and high selfing rates, albeit with signatures of admixture. Coalescence-based dating analysis detected a recent split between crown lineages in the Late Quaternary. Plastome sequences showed incongruent evolutionary relationships with those recovered by the nuclear data, suggesting interbreeding and chloroplast capture events between genetically distant populations. Demographic and population dispersal coalescent models identified an ancestral origin of B. stacei in the western-central Mediterranean islands, followed by an early colonization of the Canary Islands and two independent colonization events of the eastern Mediterranean region through long-distance dispersal and bottleneck events as the most likely evolutionary history. Climate niche data identified three arid niches of B. stacei in the southern Mediterranean region. Our findings indicate that the phylogeography of B. stacei populations was shaped by recent radiations, frequent extinctions, long-distance dispersal events, occasional interbreeding, and adaptation to local climates.

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