Persistence of an endangered native duck, feral mallards, and multiple hybrid swarms across the main Hawaiian Islands
Caitlin Wells, Philip Lavretsky, Michael Sorenson, Jeffrey Peters, Jeffrey DaCosta, Stephen Turnbull, Kimberly Uyehara, Christopher Malachowski, Bruce Dugger, John Eadie & Andrew Engilis
Interspecific hybridization is recognized as an important process in the evolutionary dynamics of both speciation and the reversal of speciation. However, our understanding of the spatial and temporal patterns of hybridization that erode versus promote species boundaries is incomplete. The endangered, endemic koloa maoli (or Hawaiian duck, Anas wyvilliana) is thought to be threatened with genetic extinction through ongoing hybridization with an introduced congener, the feral mallard (A. platyrhynchos). We investigated spatial and temporal variation...