首页 | 本学科首页   官方微博 | 高级检索  
   检索      


Possible glimpses into early speciation: the effect of ovarian fluid on sperm velocity accords with post‐copulatory isolation between two guppy populations
Authors:A Devigili  C Gasparini  I W Ramnarine  A Pilastro  J P Evans
Institution:1. Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden;2. Department of Biology, University of Padova, Padua, ItalyEqual contribution.;3. Department of Biology, University of Padova, Padua, Italy;4. Centre for Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences (M092), University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia;5. Department of Life Sciences, University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago
Abstract:Identifying mechanisms of reproductive isolation is key to understanding speciation. Among the putative mechanisms underlying reproductive isolation, sperm–female interactions (post‐mating–prezygotic barriers) are arguably the hardest to identify, not least because these are likely to operate at the cellular or molecular level. Yet sperm–female interactions offer great potential to prevent the transfer of genetic information between different populations at the initial stages of speciation. Here, we provide a preliminary test for the presence of a putative post‐mating–prezygotic barrier operating between three populations of Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata), an internally fertilizing fish that inhabits streams with different levels of connectivity across Trinidad. We experimentally evaluate the effect of female ovarian fluid on sperm velocity (a predictor of competitive fertilization success) according to whether males and females were from the same (native) or different (foreign) populations. Our results reveal the potential for ovarian fluid to act as a post‐mating–prezygotic barrier between two populations from different drainages, but also that the strength of this barrier is different among populations. This result may explain the previous finding that, in some populations, sperm from native males have precedence over foreign sperm, which could eventually lead to reproductive isolation between these populations.
Keywords:cryptic female choice  gene flow  incipient speciation  population differentiation  sperm competition
设为首页 | 免责声明 | 关于勤云 | 加入收藏

Copyright©北京勤云科技发展有限公司  京ICP备09084417号