National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
Ecol Lett. 2013 Aug;16(8):1004-13. doi: 10.1111/ele.12131. Epub 2013 Jun 19.
Non-random mating provides multiple evolutionary benefits and can result in speciation. Biological organisms are characterised by a myriad of different traits, many of which can serve as mating cues. We consider multiple mechanisms of non-random mating simultaneously within a unified modelling framework in an attempt to understand better which are more likely to evolve in natural populations going through the process of local adaptation and ecological speciation. We show that certain traits that are under direct natural selection are more likely to be co-opted as mating cues, leading to the appearance of magic traits (i.e. phenotypic traits involved in both local adaptation and mating decisions). Multiple mechanisms of non-random mating can interact so that trait co-evolution enables the evolution of non-random mating mechanisms that would not evolve alone. The presence of magic traits may suggest that ecological selection was acting during the origin of new species.
非随机交配提供了多种进化优势，并可能导致物种形成。生物有机体具有无数不同的特征，其中许多可以作为交配线索。我们在一个统一的建模框架内同时考虑多种非随机交配机制，试图更好地理解在经历局部适应和生态物种形成过程的自然种群中，哪些机制更有可能进化。我们表明，某些受到直接自然选择的特征更有可能被选为交配线索，从而导致神奇特征（即参与局部适应和交配决策的表型特征）的出现。非随机交配的多种机制可以相互作用，从而使特征协同进化能够促进非随机交配机制的进化，而这些机制如果单独进化则不会进化。神奇特征的存在可能表明生态选择在新物种起源时发挥了作用。
