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2016 ; 29
(4
): 865-9
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Hybrid female mate choice as a species isolating mechanism: environment matters
#MMPMID26717048
Schmidt EM
; Pfennig KS
J Evol Biol
2016[Apr]; 29
(4
): 865-9
PMID26717048
show ga
A fundamental goal of biology is to understand how new species arise and are
maintained. Female mate choice is potentially critical to the speciation process:
mate choice can prevent hybridization and thereby generate reproductive isolation
between potentially interbreeding groups. Yet, in systems where hybridization
occurs, mate choice by hybrid females might also play a key role in reproductive
isolation by affecting hybrid fitness and contributing to patterns of gene flow
between species. We evaluated whether hybrid mate choice behaviour could serve as
such an isolating mechanism using spadefoot toad hybrids of Spea multiplicata and
Spea bombifrons. We assessed the mate preferences of female hybrid spadefoot
toads for sterile hybrid males vs. pure-species males in two alternative habitat
types in which spadefoots breed: deep or shallow water. We found that, in deep
water, hybrid females preferred the calls of sterile hybrid males to those of
S. multiplicata males. Thus, maladaptive hybrid mate preferences could serve as
an isolating mechanism. However, in shallow water, the preference for hybrid male
calls was not expressed. Moreover, hybrid females did not prefer hybrid calls to
those of S. bombifrons in either environment. Because hybrid female mate choice
was context-dependent, its efficacy as a reproductive isolating mechanism will
depend on both the environment in which females choose their mates as well as the
relative frequencies of males in a given population. Thus, reproductive isolation
between species, as well as habitat specific patterns of gene flow between
species, might depend critically on the nature of hybrid mate preferences and the
way in which they vary across environments.