NSERC Banting Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca, NY, 14850, USA.
Mol Ecol. 2017 Jun;26(11):2842-2844. doi: 10.1111/mec.14104.
The behavioural signals used in mate selection are a key component in the evolution of premating isolating barriers and, subsequently, the formation of new species. The importance of mating signals has a long tradition of study in songbirds, where many species differ in their song characteristics. In oscine songbirds, individual birds usually learn their songs from a tutor. Mistakes during learning can help generate geographic dialects, akin to those within human language groups. In songbirds, dialect differences can often be substantial and there is an intuitive connection between the evolution of song amongst populations at a small scale, and the more substantive song differences between bird species and presumably used in species recognition. However, studies investigating the concordance between putative genetic and behavioural boundaries have generated mixed results. In many cases, this is possibly a function of the poor resolving power of the genetic markers employed. In this issue of Molecular Ecology, Lipshutz et al. () combine genomic markers with a robust behavioural assay to address the importance of song variation amongst white-crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys) subspecies.
在选择配偶时使用的行为信号是交配前隔离屏障进化的关键组成部分，随后形成新物种。在鸣禽中，交配信号的重要性有着悠久的研究传统，许多物种的歌曲特征存在差异。在鸣禽中，个体通常从导师那里学习歌曲。学习过程中的错误有助于产生地理方言，类似于人类语言群体中的方言。在鸣禽中，方言差异通常很大，并且在小范围内种群之间的歌曲进化与鸟类物种之间更实质性的歌曲差异之间存在直观的联系，这些差异可能用于物种识别。然而，研究调查了假定的遗传和行为边界之间的一致性，结果喜忧参半。在许多情况下，这可能是所使用遗传标记分辨率差的结果。在本期《分子生态学》中，Lipshutz 等人 () 将基因组标记与稳健的行为分析相结合，以解决白冠麻雀 (Zonotrichia leucophrys)亚种之间歌曲变化的重要性。
