scholarly journals Costly mate preferences can promote reproductive isolation along ecological gradients

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas G. Aubier ◽  
Mathieu Joron
Keyword(s):  
Reproductive Isolation ◽  
Environmental Gradients ◽  
Mate Preferences ◽  
Spatially Explicit ◽  
Ecological Gradients ◽  
Ecological Gradient ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Viability Selection ◽  
Parapatric Speciation ◽  
Female Choosiness

AbstractSpecies often replace each-other spatially along ecological or environmental gradients. In models of parapatric speciation driven by assortative mating, delayed mating when females are too choosy about mates has so far been ignored. Yet, this generates a cost of choosiness, which should cause direct sexual selection against female choosiness. In our spatially-explicit individual-based model, disruptive viability selection leads to divergence of an ecological trait in a population distributed along an ecological gradient. Additionally, female choosiness (following a ‘matching mating rule’ based on the same ecological trait) can evolve at the risk of delaying mating, and can limit gene flow between diverging populations. We show that, along ecological gradients, a cost of choosiness associated with delayed mating modifies the genotypic frequencies on which viability selection acts. This cost can even remove much of the viability selection acting indirectly against choosiness at the ends of the gradient, thereby favouring the evolution of strong choosiness. A cost of choosiness can therefore promote reproductive isolation in parapatry, depending on the characteristics of the ecological gradient.

scholarly journals Juvenile Experience with Male Cues Triggers Cryptic Choice Mechanisms in Adult Female Redback Spiders

Insects ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 825
Author(s):  
Maydianne C. B. Andrade ◽  
Aiswarya Baskaran ◽  
Maria Daniela Biaggio ◽  
Maria Modanu
Keyword(s):  
Population Density ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Chemical Cues ◽  
Mate Preferences ◽  
Social Cues ◽  
Adult Males ◽  
Volatile Chemicals ◽  
Male Density ◽  
The Social ◽  
Female Choosiness

Female choice may be linked to population density if the expected encounter rates with potential mates affects choosiness (the energy and risk engaged to express mate preferences). Choosiness should covary with male availability, which could be assessed using the social cues available during development. We tested whether the exposure of juvenile females to cues of male density affected the mechanisms of choosiness of adult Latrodectus hasselti spiders in two experiments simulating natural contexts. The juvenile females were exposed to (1) volatile chemicals from two densities of adult males (airborne cues), and (2) tactile, vibrational and chemical cues from adult males or other females (cohabitation cues). As adults, the females mated readily, regardless of the treatment, but there was strong evidence for post-copulatory mechanisms of choosiness in females exposed to cues of high male availability. These included abbreviated matings (in both experiments), cannibalism of the males before the mating was complete (cohabitation), and, remarkably, a reduction in the successful placement of internal sperm plugs (cohabitation). These shifts decrease the likelihood that the first mate would monopolize paternity if the female chose to mate again. We conclude that female choosiness may impose a strong selection on males despite the high mating rates, and these effects can hinge on the cues of male availability detected by juveniles.

scholarly journals The limits to parapatric speciation 3: evolution of strong reproductive isolation in presence of gene flow despite limited ecological differentiation

2020 ◽  
Vol 375 (1806) ◽  
pp. 20190532 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Blanckaert ◽  
Claudia Bank ◽  
Joachim Hermisson
Keyword(s):  
Gene Flow ◽  
Reproductive Isolation ◽  
Local Adaptation ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Genetic Barrier ◽  
Incipient Species ◽  
Postzygotic Reproductive Isolation ◽  
Minimal Configuration ◽  
Parapatric Speciation ◽  
Two Populations

Gene flow tends to impede the accumulation of genetic divergence. Here, we determine the limits for the evolution of postzygotic reproductive isolation in a model of two populations that are connected by gene flow. We consider two selective mechanisms for the creation and maintenance of a genetic barrier: local adaptation leads to divergence among incipient species due to selection against migrants, and Dobzhansky–Muller incompatibilities (DMIs) reinforce the genetic barrier through selection against hybrids. In particular, we are interested in the maximum strength of the barrier under a limited amount of local adaptation, a challenge that many incipient species may initially face. We first confirm that with classical two-locus DMIs, the maximum amount of local adaptation is indeed a limit to the strength of a genetic barrier. However, with three or more loci and cryptic epistasis, this limit holds no longer. In particular, we identify a minimal configuration of three epistatically interacting mutations that is sufficient to confer strong reproductive isolation. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Towards the completion of speciation: the evolution of reproductive isolation beyond the first barriers’.

scholarly journals Female and male visually based mate preferences are consistent with reproductive isolation between populations of the Lake Malawi endemic Labeotropheus fuelleborni

2010 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Pauers ◽  
Timothy J. Ehlinger ◽  
Jeffrey S. McKinnon
Keyword(s):  
Mate Choice ◽  
Reproductive Isolation ◽  
Courtship Behavior ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Female Mate Choice ◽  
Lake Malawi ◽  
Mate Preferences ◽  
Visual Signals ◽  
Male Mating ◽  
Haplochromine Cichlids

Abstract Sexual selection via female mate choice is thought to have played a key role in the speciation of haplochromine cichlids, but a dominant role for visual signals in such processes has lately been called into question. In addition, the possible role of male mating preferences in haplochromine speciation has been little studied. We studied patterns of both female and male mate choice, based exclusively on visual signals, in order to evaluate potential reproductive isolation between two populations of the Lake Malawi haplochromine Labeotropheus fuelleborni. In the first experiment, females were allowed to choose between two males, one from the same population and the other allopatric with respect to the female. Females in this experiment responded more frequently to males from their own population. Similarly, the males in these trials displayed more frequently when presented with females of their own population. In the second experiment, a female was allowed to choose between two males, either both from her own population or both allopatric. In these trials, both males and females from the Katale population interacted significantly more frequently in settings in which all three individuals were from the same population (“same-population trios”), and those from the Chipoka population showed a similar trend. Thus, patterns in both male and female courtship behavior suggest that visual signals contribute to at least incipient reproductive isolation between populations of L. fuelleborni.

scholarly journals Sexual selection on color and behavior within and between cichlid populations: Implications for speciation

2012 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Pauers ◽  
Jeffrey S. Mckinnon
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Mate Choice ◽  
Reproductive Isolation ◽  
Assortative Mating ◽  
Mate Preferences ◽  
Separate Experiment ◽  
Color Patterns ◽  
Male Behavior ◽  
Female Population ◽  
Different Color

Abstract Sexual selection is widely viewed as playing a central role in haplochromine cichlid speciation. Hypothetically, once divergent mate preferences evolve among populations of these fishes, reproductive isolation follows and the populations begin to behave as different species. Various studies have examined patterns of assortative mating among species and sometimes populations, but few have examined variation in directional preferences, especially among populations of the same species. We investigated mate choice behavior in two populations of Labeotropheus fuelleborni, a Lake Malawi endemic. We test whether mating preferences between populations are based on the same traits and in the same direction as preferences within populations. We examine the potential contributions of two classes of trait, color patterns and behaviors, to reproductive isolation. When females chose between either two males of their own population, or two from another, female preferences were generally similar (for the female population) across the two contexts. Mate choice patterns differed between (female) populations for a measure of color, but only modestly for male behavior. In a separate experiment we simultaneously offered females a male of their own population and a male from a different population. In these trials, females consistently preferred males from their own population, which were also the males that displayed more frequently than their opponents, but not necessarily those with color traits suggested to be most attractive in the previous experiment. Thus directional preferences for chroma and related aspects of color may be important when females are presented with males of otherwise similar phenotypes, but may play little role in mediating assortative mating among populations with substantially different color patterns. A preference for male behavior could play some role in speciation if males preferentially court same-population females, as we have observed for the populations studied herein.

Pelagic species diversity, biogeography, and evolution

Paleobiology ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 26 (S4) ◽  
pp. 236-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard D. Norris
Keyword(s):  
Species Diversity ◽  
Environmental Gradients ◽  
Water Masses ◽  
Morphological Data ◽  
Airborne Spores ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Population Exchange ◽  
High Dispersal ◽  
Population Sizes ◽  
Parapatric Speciation

Pelagic (open-ocean) species have enormous population sizes and broad, even global, distributions. These characteristics should damp rates of speciation in allopatric and vicariant evolutionary models since dispersal should swamp diverging populations and prevent divergence. Yet the fossil record suggests that rates of evolutionary turnover in pelagic organisms are often quite rapid, comparable to rates observed in much more highly fragmented terrestrial and shallow-marine environments. Furthermore, genetic and ecological studies increasingly suggest that species diversity is considerably higher in the pelagic realm than inferred from many morphological taxonomies.Zoogeographic evidence suggests that ranges of many pelagic groups are much more limited by their ability to maintain viable populations than by any inability to disperse past tectonic and hydrographic barriers to population exchange. Freely dispersing pelagic taxa resemble airborne spores or wind-dispersed seeds that can drift almost anywhere but complete the entire life cycle only in favorable habitats. It seems likely that vicariant and allopatric models for speciation are far less important in pelagic evolution than sympatric or parapatric speciation in which dispersal is not limiting. Nevertheless, speciation can be quite rapid and involve cladogenesis even in cases where morphological data suggest gradual species transitions. Indeed, recent paleoecological and molecular studies increasingly suggest that classic examples of “phyletic gradualism” involve multiple, cryptic speciation events.Paleoceanographic and climatic change seem to influence rates of turnover by modifying surface water masses and environmental gradients between them to create new habitats rather than by preventing dispersal. Changes in the vertical structure and seasonality of water masses may be particularly important since these can lead to changes in the depth and timing of reproduction. Long-distance dispersal may actually promote evolution by regularly carrying variants of a species across major oceanic fronts and exposing them to very different selection pressures than occur in their home range. High dispersal in pelagic taxa also implies that extinction should be difficult to achieve except though global perturbations that prevent populations from reestablishing themselves following local extinction. High rates of extinction in some pelagic groups suggests either that global perturbations are common, or that the species are much more narrowly adapted than we would infer from current taxonomies.

scholarly journals Sympatric, parapatric or allopatric: the most important way to classify speciation?

2008 ◽  
Vol 363 (1506) ◽  
pp. 2997-3007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger K Butlin ◽  
Juan Galindo ◽  
John W Grahame
Keyword(s):  
Reproductive Isolation ◽  
Local Adaptation ◽  
Genetic Basis ◽  
Environmental Gradients ◽  
Sympatric Speciation ◽  
Model System ◽  
Littorina Saxatilis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Intertidal Gastropod

The most common classification of modes of speciation begins with the spatial context in which divergence occurs: sympatric, parapatric or allopatric. This classification is unsatisfactory because it divides a continuum into discrete categories, concentrating attention on the extremes, and it subordinates other dimensions on which speciation processes vary, such as the forces driving differentiation and the genetic basis of reproductive isolation. It also ignores the fact that speciation is a prolonged process that commonly has phases in different spatial contexts. We use the example of local adaptation and partial reproductive isolation in the intertidal gastropod Littorina saxatilis to illustrate the inadequacy of the spatial classification of speciation modes. Parallel divergence in shell form in response to similar environmental gradients in England, Spain and Sweden makes this an excellent model system. However, attempts to demonstrate ‘incipient’ and ‘sympatric’ speciation involve speculation about the future and the past. We suggest that it is more productive to study the current balance between local adaptation and gene flow, the interaction between components of reproductive isolation and the genetic basis of differentiation.

scholarly journals Cellular-automata-based ecological and ecohydraulics modelling

2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 252-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiuwen Chen ◽  
Fei Ye ◽  
Weifeng Li
Keyword(s):  
Cellular Automata ◽  
Spatial Heterogeneity ◽  
Riparian Vegetation ◽  
Regulated River ◽  
Spatially Explicit ◽  
Local Interactions ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Lumped Models ◽  
Global Patterns ◽  
Modelling Application

Spatially lumped models may fail to take into account the effects of spatial heterogeneity and local interactions. These properties sometimes are crucial to the dynamics and evolutions of ecosystems. This paper started from the fundamental aspects of CA and focused on the development and application of the approach to ecological and ecohydraulics modelling. Application cases include modelling of prey–predator dynamics by stochastic CA and simulation of riparian vegetation successions in a regulated river by rule-based CA. The results indicated that spatially explicit paradigms such as cellular automata (CA) have a strong capability to bridge the local processes and global patterns.

scholarly journals Loss of sexual isolation in a hybridizing stickleback species pair

2013 ◽  
Vol 59 (5) ◽  
pp. 591-603 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alycia C. R. Lackey ◽  
Janette Wenrick Boughman
Keyword(s):  
Reproductive Isolation ◽  
Sexual Isolation ◽  
Distinct Species ◽  
Mate Preferences ◽  
Reproductive Barriers ◽  
Species Pair ◽  
Hybrid Swarm ◽  
Species Formation ◽  
Species Pairs

Abstract One approach to understand the importance of reproductive barriers to the speciation process is to study the breakdown of barriers between formerly distinct species. One reproductive barrier, sexual isolation, reduces gene flow between species through differences in mate preferences and mating signals and is likely important for species formation and maintenance. We measure sexual isolation in two limnetic-benthic threespine stickleback species pairs (Gasterosteus spp.). One species pair maintains strong reproductive isolation while the other species pair has recently collapsed into a hybrid swarm. We compare the strength of sexual isolation in the hybridizing pair to the currently isolated pair. We provide the first evidence that sexual isolation has been lost in the hybridizing pair and show furthermore that preferences females have for conspecific mates and the traits they use to distinguish conspecific and heterospecific males contribute to this loss. This work highlights the fragility of reproductive isolation between young species pairs and considers the role of sexual isolation in speciation.

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