Pheromone diversification and age-dependent behavioural plasticity decrease interspecific mating costs in Nasonia.

ABSTRACT: Interspecific mating can cause severe fitness costs due to the fact that hybrids are often non-viable or less fit. Thus, theory predicts the selection of traits that lessen reproductive interactions between closely related sympatric species. Males of the parasitic wasp Nasonia vitripennis differ from all other Nasonia species by an additional sex pheromone component, but the ecological selective forces underlying this pheromone diversification are unknown. Here we present data from lab experiments suggesting that costly interspecific sexual interactions with the sympatric species N. giraulti might have been responsible for the pheromone evolution and some courtship-related behavioural adaptations in N. vitripennis. Most N. giraulti females are inseminated already within the host, but N. gi

SUBMITTER: Ruther J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3925242 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature