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Natural Selection and the Reinforcement of Mate Recognition
Megan Higgie,1*Steve Chenoweth,2Mark W. Blows1
Natural selection on mate recognition may often contribute to
speciation, resulting in reproductive character displacement.Field
populations of Drosophila serrata display reproductive
characterdisplacement in cuticular hydrocarbons when sympatric with
Drosophilabirchii. We exposed field sympatric and
allopatric populationsof D. serrata to experimental
sympatry with D. birchii for ninegenerations. Cuticular
hydrocarbons of field allopatric D. serratapopulations
evolved to resemble the field sympatric populations,whereas field
sympatric D. serrata populations remained unchanged.Our
experiment indicates that natural selection on mate recognitionresulted in the field pattern of reproductive character displacement.
1 Department of Zoology and Entomology,
University of Queensland, St. Lucia 4072, Australia.
2 Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Griffith
University, Nathan 4111, Australia.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed: E-mail:
MHiggie{at}zoology.uq.edu.au
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In Science Magazine
PERSPECTIVES
Nick Barton (20 October 2000) Science290 (5491), 462.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.290.5491.462] |Summary »|Full Text »
REPORTS
Andrew P. Hendry, John K. Wenburg, Paul Bentzen, Eric C. Volk, and Thomas P. Quinn (20 October 2000) Science290 (5491), 516.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.290.5491.516] |Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »
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