Danner J E, Fleischer R C, Danner R M, Moore I T
Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Washington, DC, USA.
Department of Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA.
J Evol Biol. 2017 Jun;30(6):1078-1093. doi: 10.1111/jeb.13065. Epub 2017 Apr 19.
Female preference for local cultural traits has been proposed as a barrier to breeding among animal populations. As such, several studies have found correlations between male bird song dialects and population genetics over relatively large distances. To investigate whether female choice for local dialects could act as a barrier to breeding between nearby and contiguous populations, we tested whether variation in male song dialects explains genetic structure among eight populations of rufous-collared sparrows (Zonotrichia capensis) in Ecuador. Our study sites lay along a transect, and adjacent study sites were separated by approximately 25 km, an order of magnitude less than previously examined for this and most other species. This transect crossed an Andean ridge and through the Quijos River Valley, both of which may be barriers to gene flow. Using a variance partitioning approach, we show that song dialect is important in explaining population genetics, independent of the geographic variables: distance, the river valley and the Andean Ridge. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that song acts as a barrier to breeding among populations in close proximity. In addition, songs of contiguous populations differed by the same degree or more than between two populations previously shown to exhibit female preference for local dialect, suggesting that birds from these populations would also breed preferentially with locals. As expected, all geographic variables (distance, the river valley and the Andean Ridge) also predicted population genetic structure. Our results have important implications for the understanding whether, and at what spatial scale, culture can affect population divergence.
雌性对当地文化特征的偏好被认为是动物种群间繁殖的一个障碍。因此，一些研究发现，在相对较大的距离上，雄鸟歌声方言与种群遗传学之间存在相关性。为了研究雌性对当地方言的选择是否会成为邻近和相邻种群间繁殖的障碍，我们测试了雄鸟歌声方言的差异是否能解释厄瓜多尔八个棕颈雀鹀（Zonotrichia capensis）种群的遗传结构。我们的研究地点沿着一条样带分布，相邻的研究地点相距约25公里，这比此前对该物种和大多数其他物种研究的距离小一个数量级。这条样带穿过一条安第斯山脉的山脊并经过基霍斯河谷，这两者都可能是基因流动的障碍。使用方差分解方法，我们表明歌声方言在解释种群遗传学方面很重要，且独立于地理变量：距离、河谷和安第斯山脉山脊。这一结果与歌声是邻近种群间繁殖障碍的假设一致。此外，相邻种群的歌声差异程度相同或大于之前显示出雌性对当地方言有偏好的两个种群之间的差异，这表明来自这些种群的鸟类也会优先与当地鸟类繁殖。不出所料，所有地理变量（距离、河谷和安第斯山脉山脊）也都预测了种群遗传结构。我们的结果对于理解文化是否以及在何种空间尺度上会影响种群分化具有重要意义。
