Experimental evidence for interspecific directional selection on moth pheromone communication.

ABSTRACT: The chemical composition of the sexual communication signals of female moths is thought to be under strong stabilizing selection, because females that produce atypical pheromone blends suffer lower success in finding mates. This intraspecific selection pressure cannot explain the high diversity of moth pheromone blends found in nature. We conducted experiments to determine whether communication interference from males of closely related species could exert strong enough directional selection to cause evolution of these signals. Attraction and mating success of Heliothis subflexa (Hs) females with a normal quantitative trait locus for production of acetate pheromone components (norm-OAc) were compared with Hs females with an introgressed quantitative trait locus from Heliothis virescens (Hv

SUBMITTER: Groot AT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1458663 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature