Reinforcement and a cline in mating behaviour evolve in response to secondary contact and hybridization in...

In a dispersal-limited species that has evolved reproductive character displacement at a contact zone, a cline in mating behaviour may result if gene flow diffuses alleles out of the contact zone into allopatric populations. Prior work has found such a clinal pattern in the shield-back katydid Aglaothorax morsei, in which the male calling songs in a sympatric population have a displaced, short interpulse interval that increases in length with increasing distance from the contact zone. In this study, molecular phylogenetic and female preference data show that (1) sympatric populations result from secondary contact, (2) hybridization in sympatry has resulted in unidirectional mitochondrial introgression and (3) female preferences are consistent with reproductive character displacement and could generate a cline in mating behaviour. These data together suggest a history of reinforcement, generally considered rare in acoustically communicating insects; thus, Aglaothorax represents an important example of a rarely documented evolutionary process.