Abstract Sunflowers of the genus Helianthus are models for hybridization research and contain three of the best studied examples of homoploid hybrid speciation. To understand the broader picture of hybridization within the annual sunflowers, we used whole genome resequencing to conduct a phylogenomic analysis and test for gene flow between lineages. We find that all annual sunflower species tested have evidence of admixture, suggesting hybridization was common during the radiation of the genus. Support for the major species tree decreases with recombination rate, consistent with hybridization and introgression contributing to discordant topologies. Admixture graphs found hybridization to be associated with the origins of the three putative hybrid species ( H. anomalus, H. deserticola , and H. paradoxus ). However, the hybridization events are more ancient than suggested by previous work. Furthermore, H. anomalus and H. deserticola appear to have arisen from a single hybridization event involving an unexpected donor, rather than through multiple independent events as previously proposed. Using a broader data set that covers the whole Helianthus genus, including perennial species, we find that signals of introgression span the genus and beyond, suggesting highly divergent introgression and/or the sorting of ancient haplotypes. Thus, Helianthus can be viewed as a syngameon in which largely reproductively isolated species are linked together by occasional or frequent gene flow.

Re-evaluating homoploid reticulate evolution in the annual sunflowers