Finding. A pitcher plant and its two obligate arthropods share a landscape and do not share a ride. The plant’s nuclear diversity thins at the range edge. Its chloroplast mostly flags the northern Oregon Coast and does not perfectly match the nucleus. A connectivity map from the plant’s niche predicts gene flow, and landscape resistance still explains plant and mite differences after you subtract kilometers. The midge’s COI and the mite’s COI each line up with the host, not with each other. Organelle markers here are travel logs.
Why this paper matters
Mutualisms are supposed to match genetically if they move together. This one matches the map and not the partner. That is a metacommunity genetics result. Mitochondria (COI) and chloroplasts are the clocks.
What they actually measured
Plant nuclear/cp genomes, arthropod COI, landscape genetics, congruence.
How to read the score
55.
What to do with it
If you model host-symbiont spatial genetics, steal the resistance-beyond-distance test and the not-with-one-another result. Skip for OXPHOS. The directional implication is that obligate partners can be regionally concordant with a host while dispersing by different rules.