1. gnxp
  2. Primate hybridization

Primate hybridization

By razib on August 25, 2007.

p-ter points me to a new paper which documents interspecies hybridization in monkeys whose lineages putatively diverged about 3 million years ago. Note that the hybridization follows Haldane's rule: the heterogametic sex (in mammals the males) exhibits sterility while the other sex does not. Whatever genetic incompatibilities built over the period during which the two populations became distinct the less robust sex (males have only one copy of the X chromosome, ergo, sex-linked diseases) naturally exhibits greater breakdown in hybrids. In any case, the story is obviously relevant to Neandertal introgression, since the divergence between moderns and Neandertals is on the order of 1 million to 100,000 years.

Related: Mammalian hybridization potentialities.

Tags
genetics

More like this

Introgression, what's in a word?
Here is the definition from Wiki: Introgression is a term used in genetics, particularly plant genetics, to describe the movement of a gene from one species into the gene pool of another by backcrossing an interspecific hybrid with one of its parents. Introgression of a transgene from a transgenic…
Ancient Sex Scandals: Did We Get It On With Neandertals?
This week, Science published two papers about the genetics of Neandertals from a team of scientists based at the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology. The first (which is the only one anyone seems to really care about) gives a draft version of the entire Neandertal genome - a whopping…
Male skew; dude likes ladies
PLoS Genetis has a neat paper up which clarifies something which we kind of already knew, Sex-Biased Evolutionary Forces Shape Genomic Patterns of Human Diversity: Like many primate species, the mating system of humans is considered to be moderately polygynous (i.e., males exhibit a higher variance…
X chromosome marks the spot, again
A few days ago I discussed a new paper which explores the patterns of natural selection in the genome of the X chromosome. As you know the X is "carried" disproportionately by females, as males have only one copy, so it offers up an interesting window into evolutionary dynamics (see The Red Queen…

Gelada (Theropithecus) and Papio have also hybridized. Different genera, although they are both called baboons. In addition, Papio species arguably constitute a single superspecies.