The signatures of panmixia and disjunction Our genetic and bioacoustic data indicate strong differentiation among local populations of Z. from isolated mountains. These deep genetic and bioacoustic splits found in poliogaster conspecific populations of even exceeded the level of divergence between the Z. poliogaster highland and lowland species. In parallel, the genetic and bioacoustic variability found within each population of is rather low. In contrast to these strong intraspecific Z. poliogaster signatures observed for the lowland showed a contrasting Z. poliogaster, Z. abyssinicus pattern: no differentiation neither genetically, nor bioacoustically, accompanied by high levels of intra-population variation. The genetic and bioacoustic patterns reflect the two opposite distribution settings of the taxa: the lowland species has a continuous distribution across the lowland savannahs. This suggests a panmictic or metapopulation-like structure with interconnected local populations. The high intraspecific variability is maintained in an interconnected population network (i.e. high rates of gene flow) of large populations. The opposite scenario applies to where Z. poliogaster, local populations show strong genetic and bioacoustic differentiation, but comparatively low levels of genetic and bioacoustic variability within single populations or groups. This might be the result of long term isolation at geographically separated mountain exclaves with rather small population sizes. The combination of population differentiation and low variation is a typical feature found in species with highly disjunct occurrences (Habel et al. 2013a). Complex differentiation with patterns in Zosterops poliogaster The bioacoustic and genetic differentiation patterns of differ from each other. Z. poliogaster While our molecular data showed no correlation between the genetic and geographical distance, the bioacoustic data showed similarities in geographically close populations,
The signatures of panmixia and disjunction Our genetic and bioacoustic data indicate strong differentiation among local populations of Z. poliogaster from isolated mountains. These deep genetic and bioacoustic splits found in conspecific populations of Z. poliogaster even exceeded the level of divergence between the highland and lowland species. In parallel, the genetic and bioacoustic variability found within each population of Z. poliogaster is rather low. In contrast to these strong intraspecific signatures observed for Z. poliogaster, the lowland Z. abyssinicus showed a contrasting pattern: no differentiation neither genetically, nor bioacoustically, accompanied by high levels of intra-population variation. The genetic and bioacoustic patterns reflect the two opposite distribution settings of the taxa: the lowland species has a continuous distribution across the lowland savannahs. This suggests a panmictic or metapopulation-like structure with interconnected local populations. The high intraspecific variability is maintained in an interconnected population network (i.e. high rates of gene flow) of large populations. The opposite scenario applies to Z. poliogaster, where local populations show strong genetic and bioacoustic differentiation, but comparatively low levels of genetic and bioacoustic variability within single populations or groups. This might be the result of long term isolation at geographically separated mountain exclaves with rather small population sizes. The combination of population differentiation and low variation is a typical feature found in species with highly disjunct occurrences (Habel et al. 2013a). Complex differentiation with patterns in Zosterops poliogaster The bioacoustic and genetic differentiation patterns of Z. poliogaster differ from each other. While our molecular data showed no correlation between the genetic and geographical distance, the bioacoustic data showed similarities in geographically close populations,
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