Hybridization And Introgression Between Three Congeneric Chinese Pelophylid Frogs

This thesis contains two chapters.Chapter 1:Review of researches in interspecific hybridization and introgression.Chapter 2:We used 9 microsatellite loci to genetically characterize hybridization and introgression among 3 species of green pond frogs, Pelophylax plancyi, Pelophylax hubeiensis and Pelophylax fukienensis. Our results support three separate species and indicate that there were frequent gene flow between P. plancyi and P. hubeiensis at Shandong and Henan. P. plancyi at Henan was similar to P. hubeiensis in 9 analysised microsatellite loci characters, while data shows admixed P. plancyi and P. hubeiensis characters in 9 microsatellite loci in Shandong population of P. plancyi. We suggest that there may exist introgression between P. plancyi and P. hubeiensis. We identified hybrid offsprings and estimated recent gene flow between P. plancyi and P. hubeiensis by BayesAss, we found that the introgression between P. plancyi Henan population and P. hubeiensis was an ancient event and the introgression between P. plancyi Shandong population and P. hubeiensis may happened recently. We also found gene flow between P. plancyi and P. fukienensis, while the same between P. hubeiensis and P. fukienensis.