TY - JOUR T1 - Hybridizing salamanders experience accelerated diversification JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/760264 SP - 760264 AU - Austin H. Patton AU - Mark J. Margres AU - Brendan Epstein AU - Jon Eastman AU - Luke J. Harmon AU - Andrew Storfer Y1 - 2020/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/02/05/760264.abstract N2 - Whether hybridization generates or erodes species diversity has long been debated, but to date most studies have been conducted at small taxonomic scales. Salamanders (order Caudata) represent a taxonomic order in which hybridization plays a prevalent ecological and evolutionary role. We employed a recently developed model of trait-dependent diversification to test the hypothesis that hybridization impacts the diversification dynamics of species that are currently hybridizing. We find strong evidence supporting this hypothesis, showing that hybridizing salamander lineages have significantly greater net-diversification rates than non-hybridizing lineages. This pattern is driven by concurrently increased speciation rates and decreased extinction rates in hybridizing lineages. Our results support the hypothesis that hybridization can act as a generative force in macroevolutionary diversification. ER -