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Behavioural divergence, interfertility and speciation: a review.
Neville Pillay1, Tasmin L Rymer
1School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, WITS 2050, South Africa. Neville.Pillay@wits.ac.za
Behavioural Processes
|September 18, 2012
Summary
Mate communication ensures species boundaries through signaller-perceiver coevolution. Disruption of these systems drives behavioural divergence, leading to speciation and reduced interfertility, especially with environmental change.
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary biology
- Animal behavior
- Communication systems
Background:
- Behavioural compatibility between mates is crucial for maintaining species boundaries.
- Effective communication between males and females underpins this compatibility.
- Breakdowns in communication lead to behavioural divergence and reduced interfertility.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review current knowledge on male signals and female perception across taxa.
- To advocate for signaller-perceiver coevolution as the basis of mate recognition systems.
- To explore factors shaping and disrupting these systems, leading to speciation.
Main Methods:
- Integration of existing literature from diverse taxa.
- Discussion of mechanisms influencing signaller-perceiver systems (phylogeny, geography, ecology, biology).
- Highlighting signal modalities (auditory, olfactory, visual, tactile) and their role in mate selection.
- Development of a model to illustrate how disruption drives divergence and speciation.
Main Results:
- Signaller-perceiver coevolution is central to species-specific mate recognition.
- Changes in sensory pathways and morphology drive communication system diversification.
- Disruption of these systems, through biological or ecological factors, promotes behavioural divergence, reduced interfertility, and speciation.
- Rapid environmental change poses a potential threat to communication systems and mate recognition.
Conclusions:
- An integrative approach combining multiple parameters is needed to understand the evolution of behavioural divergence and speciation.
- Future research should focus on the impact of environmental change on communication systems and signaller-perceiver couplings.
- Understanding these dynamics is key to predicting and mitigating impacts on biodiversity.
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