TY  - JOUR
A1  - Bierbach, David
A1  - Penshorn, Marina
A1  - Hamfler, Sybille
A1  - Herbert, Denise B.
A1  - Appel, Jessica
A1  - Meyer, Philipp
A1  - Slattery, Patrick
A1  - Charaf, Sarah
A1  - Wolf, Raoul
A1  - Völker, Johannes
A1  - Berger, Elisabeth
A1  - Dröge, Janis
A1  - Wolf, Konstantin
A1  - Riesch, Rüdiger
A1  - Arias-Rodriguez, Lenin
A1  - Indy, Jeanne R.
A1  - Plath, Martin
T1  - Gradient evolution of body colouration in surface- and cave-dwelling Poecilia mexicana and the role of phenotype-assortative female mate choice
T2  - BioMed research international
N2  - Ecological speciation assumes reproductive isolation to be the product of ecologically based divergent selection. Beside natural selection, sexual selection via phenotype-assortative mating is thought to promote reproductive isolation. Using the neotropical fish Poecilia mexicana from a system that has been described to undergo incipient ecological speciation in adjacent, but ecologically divergent habitats characterized by the presence or absence of toxic H2S and darkness in cave habitats, we demonstrate a gradual change in male body colouration along the gradient of light/darkness, including a reduction of ornaments that are under both inter- and intrasexual selection in surface populations. In dichotomous choice tests using video-animated stimuli, we found surface females to prefer males from their own population over the cave phenotype. However, female cave fish, observed on site via infrared techniques, preferred to associate with surface males rather than size-matched cave males, likely reflecting the female preference for better-nourished (in this case: surface) males. Hence, divergent selection on body colouration indeed translates into phenotype-assortative mating in the surface ecotype, by selecting against potential migrant males. Female cave fish, by contrast, do not have a preference for the resident male phenotype, identifying natural selection against migrants imposed by the cave environment as the major driver of the observed reproductive isolation.
Y1  - 2013
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/33464
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-334644
SN  - 2314-6141
N1  - Copyright © 2013 David Bierbach et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
VL  - 2013
IS  - Article ID 148348
PB  - Hindawi
CY  - New York [u.a.]
ER  -