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Science 8 April 2005:
Vol. 308. no. 5719, pp. 258 - 260
DOI: 10.1126/science.1107577
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Reports

Assortative Mating in Sympatric Host Races of the European Corn Borer

Thibaut Malausa,1,2* Marie-Thérèse Bethenod,3 Arnaud Bontemps,1,3 Denis Bourguet,2 Jean-Marie Cornuet,2 Sergine Ponsard1

Although a growing body of work supports the plausibility of sympatric speciation in animals, the practical difficulties of directly quantifying reproductive isolation between diverging taxa remain an obstacle to analyzing this process. We used a combination of genetic and biogeochemical markers to produce a direct field estimate of assortative mating in phytophagous insect populations. We show that individuals of the same insect species, the European corn borer Ostrinia nubilalis, that develop on different host plants can display almost absolute reproductive isolation—the proportion of assortative mating was >95%—even in the absence of temporal or spatial isolation.

1 Laboratoire Dynamique de la Biodiversité, Université P. Sabatier–Toulouse III, UMR CNRS 5172, 31 062 Toulouse Cedex 04, France.
2 Centre de Biologie et de Gestion des Populations (CBGP), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Campus International de Baillarguet, 34 988 Montferrier/Lez, France.
3 Unité Génétique Microbienne et Environnement, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique La Minière, 78 285 Guyancourt, France.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: malausa{at}cict.fr

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