The genetic basis of speciation in the Giliopsis lineage of Ipomopsis (Polemoniaceae)

One of the most powerful drivers of speciation in plants is pollinator-mediated disruptive selection, which leads to the divergence of floral traits adapted to the morphology and behavior of different pollinators. Despite the widespread importance of this speciation mechanism, its genetic basis has been explored in only a few groups. Here, we characterize the genetic basis of pollinator-mediated divergence of two species in genus Ipomopsis, I. guttata and I. tenuifolia, using quantitative trait locus (QTL) analyses of floral traits and other variable phenotypes. We detected 1-6 QTLs per trait, with each QTL generally explaining small to modest amounts of the phenotypic variance of a backcross hybrid population. In contrast, flowering time and anthocyanin abundance (a metric of colour variation) were controlled by a few QTLs of relatively large effect. QTLs were strongly clustered within linkage groups, with 26 of 37 QTLs localized to six marker-interval \"hotspots,\" all of which harbored...