Maladaptive secondary sexual characteristics reduce the reproductive success of hybrids between native and non-native salmonids.

ABSTRACT: Human-mediated hybridization between introduced and native species is one of the most serious threats to native taxa. Although field studies have attempted to quantify the relative fitness or reproductive success of parental species and their hybrids, only a few studies have unraveled the factors determining the fitness of hybrids. Here, we hypothesized that maladaptive secondary sexual characteristics may reduce fitness of hybrids between two fish species. To test this, we evaluated the reproductive success of introduced brook trout (BT: Salvelinus fontinalis), native white-spotted charr (WSC: S. leucomaenis) and their hybrids in a natural stream in Hokkaido, Japan, where the two parental species show remarkably different male secondary sexual characteristics, such as

SUBMITTER: Fukui S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6303740 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature