Butlin, R. orcid.org/0000-0003-4736-0954 and Stankowski, S. (2026) Cline widths, barriers to gene flow and reproductive isolation: a comment on Gippner et al. 2026. Molecular Ecology, 35 (19). e70558. ISSN: 0962-1083
Abstract
Hybrid zones provide opportunities to study the operation of barriers to gene flow as they play out in natural environments. However, comparative analysis is difficult because both hybrid zones and the methods used to analyse them vary widely. Gippner et al. (2026) brought together data on 108 animal hybrid zones. They argued that cline width in these zones provides a proxy for reproductive isolation (RI). Here, we comment on what cline widths do and don’t tell us about the evolutionary progression towards the completion of speciation.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Authors/Creators: |
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| Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2026 The Authors. Except as otherwise noted, this author-accepted version of a journal article published in Molecular Ecology is made available via the University of Sheffield Research Publications and Copyright Policy under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Dates: |
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| Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
| Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Biosciences (Sheffield) |
| Date Deposited: | 29 Sep 2026 08:12 |
| Last Modified: | 29 Sep 2026 08:12 |
| Status: | Published |
| Publisher: | Wiley |
| Refereed: | Yes |
| Identification Number: | 10.1111/mec.70558 |
| Related URLs: | |
| Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:245862 |
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