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While often deleterious, hybridization can also be a key source of genetic variation and pre-adapted haplotypes, enabling rapid evolution and niche expansion. Here we evaluate these opposing selection forces on introgressed ancestry between maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) and its wild teosinte relative, mexicana (Zea mays ssp. mexicana). Introgression from ecologically diverse teosinte may have facilitated maize’s global range expansion, in particular to challenging high elevation regions (> 1500 m). We generated low-coverage genome sequencing data for 348 maize and mexicana individuals to evaluate patterns of introgression in 14 sympatric population pairs, spanning the elevational range of mexicana, a teosinte endemic to the mountains of Mexico. While recent hybrids are commonly observed in sympatric populations and mexicana demonstrates fine-scale local adaptation, we find that the majority of mexicana ancestry tracts introgressed into maize over 1000 generations ago. This mexicana ancestry seems to have maintained much of its diversity and likely came from a common ancestral source, rather than contemporary sympatric populations, resulting in relatively low FST between mexicana ancestry tracts sampled from geographically distant maize populations. Introgressed mexicana ancestry in maize is reduced in lower-recombination rate quintiles of the genome and around domestication genes, consistent with pervasive selection against introgression. However, we also find mexicana ancestry increases across the sampled elevational gradient and that high introgression peaks are most commonly shared among high-elevation maize populations, consistent with introgression from mexicana facilitating adaptation to the highland environment. In the other direction, we find patterns consistent with adaptive and clinal introgression of maize ancestry into sympatric mexicana at many loci across the genome, suggesting that maize also contributes to adaptation in mexicana, especially at the lower end of its elevational range. In sympatric maize, in addition to high introgression regions we find many genomic regions where selection for local adaptation maintains steep gradients in introgressed mexicana ancestry across elevation, including at least two inversions: the well-characterized 14 Mb Inv4m on chromosome 4 and a novel 3 Mb inversion Inv9f surrounding the macrohairless1 locus on chromosome 9. Most outlier loci with high mexicana introgression show no signals of sweeps or local sourcing from sympatric populations and so likely represent ancestral introgression sorted by selection, resulting in correlated but distinct outcomes of introgression in different contemporary maize populations.

While often deleterious, hybridization can also be a key source of genetic variation and pre-adapted haplotypes, enabling rapid evolution and niche expansion. Here we evaluate these opposing selection forces on introgressed ancestry between maize (Zea mays ssp. mays), and its wild teosinte relative. Introgression from ecologically diverse teosinte may have facilitated maize's global range expansion, in particular to challenging high elevation regions (> 1500 m). We generated low-coverage genome sequencing data for 348 maize and mexicana individuals to evaluate patterns of introgression in 14 sympatric population pairs, spanning the elevational range of Zea mays ssp. mexicana, a teosinte endemic to the mountains of Mexico. While recent hybrids are commonly observed in sympatric populations and mexicana demonstrates fine-scale local adaptation, we find that the majority of mexicana ancestry tracts introgressed >1000 generations ago. This mexicana ancestry seems to have maintained much of its diversity and likely came from a common ancestral source, rather than contemporary sympatric populations, resulting in relatively low Fst between mexicana ancestry tracts sampled from geographically distant maize populations. Introgressed mexicana ancestry is reduced in lower-recombination rate quintiles of the genome and around domestication genes, consistent with pervasive selection against introgression. However, we also find mexicana ancestry increases across the sampled elevational gradient and that high introgression peaks are most commonly shared among high-elevation maize populations, consistent with introgression from mexicana facilitating adaptation to the highland environment. In the other direction, we find patterns consistent with adaptive and clinal introgression of maize ancestry into sympatric mexicana at many loci across the genome, suggesting that maize also contributes to adaptation in mexicana, especially at the lower end of its elevational range. In sympatric maize, in addition to high introgression regions we find many genomic regions where selection for local adaptation maintains steep gradients in introgressed mexicana ancestry across elevation, including at least two inversions: the well-characterized Inv4m and a new 3 Mb inversion Inv9f surrounding the macrohairless1 locus on chromosome 9. The bulk of our ancestry selection outliers show no signals of sweeps or local sourcing from sympatric populations and so likely represent ancestral introgression sorted by selection, resulting in correlated but distinct outcomes of introgression in different contemporary maize landrace populations.

The soilborne oomycete Phytophthora cinnamomi—which causes root rot, trunk cankers, and stem lesions on an estimated 5,000 plant species worldwide—is a lethal pathogen of American chestnut (Castanea dentata) as well as many other woody plant species. P. cinnamomi is particularly damaging to chestnut and chinquapin trees (Castanea spp.) in the southern portion of its native range in the United States due to relatively mild climatic conditions that are conductive to disease development. Introduction of resistant genotypes is the most practical solution for disease management in forests because treatment with fungicides and eradication of the pathogen are neither practical nor economically feasible in natural ecosystems. Using backcross families derived from crosses of American chestnuts with two resistant Chinese chestnut cultivars Mahogany and Nanking, we constructed linkage maps and identified quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for resistance to P. cinnamomi that had been introgressed from these Chinese chestnut cultivars. In total, 957 plants representing five cohorts of three hybrid crosses were genotyped by sequencing and phenotyped by standardized inoculation and visual examination over a 6-year period from 2011 to 2016. Eight parental linkage maps comprising 7,715 markers were constructed, and 17 QTLs were identified on four linkage groups (LGs): LG_A, LG_C, LG_E, and LG_K. The most consistent QTLs were detected on LG_E in seedlings from crosses with both ‘Mahogany’ and ‘Nanking’ and LG_K in seedlings from ‘Mahogany’ crosses. Two consistent large and medium effect QTLs located ∼10 cM apart were present in the middle and at the lower end of LG_E; other QTLs were considered to have small effects. These results imply that the genetic architecture of resistance to P. cinnamomi in Chinese chestnut × American chestnut hybrid progeny may resemble the P. sojae–soybean pathosystem, with a few dominant QTLs along with quantitatively inherited partial resistance conferred by multiple small-effect QTLs.

The genus Castanea in North America contains multiple tree and shrub taxa of 10 conservation concern. The two species within the group, American chestnut (Castanea dentata) 11 and chinquapin (C. pumila sensu lato), display remarkable morphological diversity across their 12 distributions in the eastern United States and southern Ontario. Previous investigators have 13 hypothesized that hybridization between C. dentata and C. pumila has played an important role 14 in generating morphological variation in wild populations. A putative hybrid taxon, Castanea 15 alabamensis, was identified in northern Alabama in the early 20th century; however, the 16 question of its hybridity has been unresolved. We tested the hypothesized hybrid origin of C. 17 alabamensis using genome-wide sequence-based genotyping of C. alabamensis, all currently 18 recognized North American Castanea taxa, and two Asian Castanea species at >100,000 single-19 nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) loci. With these data, we generated a high-resolution 20 phylogeny, tested for admixture among taxa, and analyzed population genetic structure of the 21 study taxa. Bayesian clustering and principal components analysis provided no evidence of 22 admixture between C. dentata and C. pumila in C. alabamensis genomes. Phylogenetic analysis 23 of genome-wide SNP data indicated that C. alabamensis forms a distinct group within C. pumila 24 sensu lato. Our results are consistent with the model of a nonhybrid origin for C. alabamensis. 25 Our finding of C. alabamensis as a genetically and morphologically distinct group within the 26 North American chinquapin complex provides further impetus for the study and conservation of 27 the North American Castanea species. 28 29