Species specificity and intraspecific variation in the chemical profiles of Heliconius butterflies across a large geographic range

Ecology and Evolution

Mauricio Linares¹  Camilo Salazar¹  Kathy Darragh²  Gabriela Montejo‐Kovacevich²  Kelsey J. R. P. Byers²  Chris D. Jiggins²  Jonathan S. Ready³  Clarisse M. E. Figueiredo³  Stefan Schulz⁴  W. Owen McMillan⁵  Krzysztof M. Kozak⁵  Richard M. Merrill⁵  Colin R. Morrison⁵ 

[1] Biology Program Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics Universidad del Rosario Bogota Colombia;Department of Zoology University of Cambridge Cambridge UK;Institute for Biological Sciences Universidade Federal do Pará Belém Brazil;Institute of Organic Chemistry Technische Universität Braunschweig Braunschweig Germany;Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Panama City Panama;

关键词: chemical ecology;    Lepidoptera;    mate choice;    pheromones;    reproductive isolation;    signaling;   

DOI  :  10.1002/ece3.6079

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Abstract In many animals, mate choice is important for the maintenance of reproductive isolation between species. Traits important for mate choice and behavioral isolation are predicted to be under strong stabilizing selection within species; however, such traits can also exhibit variation at the population level driven by neutral and adaptive evolutionary processes. Here, we describe patterns of divergence among androconial and genital chemical profiles at inter‐ and intraspecific levels in mimetic Heliconius butterflies. Most variation in chemical bouquets was found between species, but there were also quantitative differences at the population level. We found a strong correlation between interspecific chemical and genetic divergence, but this correlation varied in intraspecific comparisons. We identified “indicator” compounds characteristic of particular species that included compounds already known to elicit a behavioral response, suggesting an approach for identification of candidate compounds for future behavioral studies in novel systems. Overall, the strong signal of species identity suggests a role for these compounds in species recognition, but with additional potentially neutral variation at the population level.

【 授权许可】

Unknown