SUPR
Gone with the wind: exploring a vanished African rock doves hybrid zone in the Sahara Desert
Dnr:

NAISS 2024/22-254

Type:

NAISS Small Compute

Principal Investigator:

Germán Hernández Alonso

Affiliation:

Uppsala universitet

Start Date:

2024-02-19

End Date:

2025-03-01

Primary Classification:

10615: Evolutionary Biology

Webpage:

Allocation

Abstract

A recent study on the rock dove (Columba livia) genomics shed light on its complex evolutionary history, revealing a genetically divergent West African population, possibly a new species. This divergence is thought to be the consequence of cycles of isolations and expansions during the dry and wet Sahara periods. Based on the refugium theory and observed admixture patterns, the existence of a hybrid zone in the Sahara Desert during the last Green Sahara Period was proposed. In this project, I aim to test the existence of a vanished hybrid zone in the Sahara Desert using whole genome sequences of six historical rock dove specimens from non-sampled populations from the Sahara and West Africa. Combining this new data with existing rock dove datasets offers a unique opportunity to explore the population dynamics and genetic consequences of hybrid zones, reveal demographic dynamics in the Sahara, distribution shifts, and the hybrid zone’s potential location and extent.