Genome evolution of blind subterranean mole rats: Adaptive peripatric versus sympatric speciation

Abstract

Significance We substantiate genomically, repeatomically, and epigenomically the origin, demography, and timing of two divergent speciation models in the Israeli five blind subterranean species of Spalax ehrenbergi superspecies. Four species demonstrate a regional, chromosomal, peripatric, climatic aridity speciation model trending southward from the northern cold and humid Golan and Upper Galilee to the hot, dry Negev Desert. The fifth species shows a local, genic, geologic-edaphic, and sympatric speciation model demonstrating primary sympatric speciation in subterranean mammals. The five species are differentiated at multiple genomic levels and demonstrate different ecological mechanisms of speciation in the superspecies. Sympatric speciation may be common in nature. Numerous ecologically divergent microsites—geologic, edaphic, climatic, abiotic, biotic—abound globally, where selection overrules gene flow homogenization.