MTA-ELTE-MTM Ecology Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University and the Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest, Hungary.
Department of Zoology, Eszterházy Károly University, Eger, Hungary.
Insect Sci. 2021 Feb;28(1):215-223. doi: 10.1111/1744-7917.12759. Epub 2020 Jun 25.
This study examines the rate of female answers to conspecific versus heterospecific male vibratory calls in three, closely related stonefly species: Zwicknia bifrons, Z. acuta, and Z. rupprechti. In a previous study those three species were recognized on the basis of their distinct male drumming calls along with differences in genital morphology and genetic divergence. During this study no-choice playback experiments using original male call samples from each species were performed, and the answer rate of females to conspecific and heterospecific signal variants was measured. Mixed effect logistic regression models were used to test if male call species identity had a statistically significant effect on female answer probability. Females answered conspecific male calls with significantly higher probability than heterospecific calls in all the three examined species, suggesting that the divergence of vibrational communication can be an important component of the prezygotic isolation between them. Low, but well detectable responsiveness to heterospecific calls was observable between Z. bifrons and Z. acuta, the two species closest to each other regarding mitochondrial genetic divergence and male call pattern similarity. Thus, our results are most congruent with a tight, gradual coevolution of male calls and female preferences.
本研究考察了在三种密切相关的石蝇物种（Zwicknia bifrons、Z. acuta 和 Z. rupprechti）中，雌性对同种与异性雄性振动叫声的反应率。在之前的研究中，这三个物种是根据它们独特的雄性击鼓叫声以及生殖器形态和遗传分歧的差异来识别的。在本研究中，使用每个物种的原始雄性叫声样本进行了无选择的回放实验，并测量了雌性对同种和异性信号变体的反应率。混合效应逻辑回归模型用于检验雄性叫声物种身份是否对雌性应答概率有统计学显著影响。在所有三种被研究的物种中，雌性对同种雄性叫声的应答概率显著高于异性叫声，这表明振动通讯的分歧可能是它们之间合子前隔离的一个重要组成部分。在最接近的两种物种 Z. bifrons 和 Z. acuta 之间，可以观察到对异性叫声的反应率虽然低，但却可以很好地检测到。因此，我们的结果与雄性叫声和雌性偏好的紧密、逐渐协同进化最一致。
