Conflict between nuclear and mitochondrial DNA phylogenies of a recent species radiation: What mtDNA reveals and conceals about modes of speciation in Hawaiian crickets

It has been asserted that recent mtDNA phylogenies support the plausibility of sympatric speciation, long considered a controversial mechanism of the origin of species. If such inferences are reliable, mtDNA phylogenies should be congruent with phylogenies based on other data. In previous work, a mtDNA phylogeny suggested that diversification of the Hawaiian cricket genus Laupala was initiated by single invasions into each of several Hawaiian islands, followed by multiple sympatric divergences within each island. In contrast, a systematic hypothesis based on morphology argues that speciation in Laupala has occurred primarily in allopatry, with two independent species radiations diversifying across the archipelago. In this study, I analyze nuclear DNA (nDNA) sequences from Laupala to compare with sequences from the mtDNA. The nDNA phylogeny corroborates the hypothesis of allopatric divergence and multiple invasions, and when compared with mtDNA patterns, suggests that interspecific hybridization is a persistent feature of the history of Laupala. The discrepancy between mtDNA and nDNA phylogenies reveals that speciation histories based on mtDNA alone can be extensively misleading.