Difference in diel mating time contributes to assortative mating between host plant-associated populations of Chilo suppressalis.

ABSTRACT: Behavioral isolation in animals can be mediated by inherent mating preferences and assortative traits, such as divergence in the diel timing of mating activity. Although divergence in the diel mating time could, in principle, promote the reproductive isolation of sympatric, conspecific populations, there is currently no unequivocal evidence of this. We conducted different mate-choice experiments to investigate the contribution of differences in diel mating activity to the reproductive isolation of the rice and water-oat populations of Chilo suppressalis. The results show that inter-population difference in diel mating activity contributes to assortative mating in these populations. In the rice population, most mating activity occurred during the first half of the scotophase, whereas in the

SUBMITTER: Quan WL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5364412 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature