Digest: Climate plays marginal role for homomorphic sex chromosome differentiation in common frogs†

Abstract

In systems with early stage sex‐chromosome evolution, climate gradients can largely explain changes in the sex‐determining systems (i.e., genetic or environmental factors). However, in the common frog Rana temporaria, Phillips et al. found that phylogeography, rather than elevation (used as a proxy for climate), was associated with homomorphic sex‐chromosome differentiation levels.

The Diversity and Evolution of Sex Chromosomes in Frogs

“…The association with temperature, implied by this latitudinal cline, is not repeated in Swiss populations where temperature varies with altitude. Instead, Y-chromosome haplotypes are better associated with the phylogeographic signal, similar to the distribution pattern of mitochondrial haplotypes [74,75]. Remarkably, Y-chromosome haplotype polymorphisms involving all three differentiation levels were found within single Swiss populations [39,72], and the haplotypes appear selectively neutral [29].…”