Courtship and mating behaviour of interspecific Nasonia hybrids (Hymenoptera, Pteromalidae): a grandfather effect.
Nasonia courtship behaviour includes easily quantifiable, stereotyped components. We analysed displays of N. vitripennis x N. longicornis hybrid males. Most of them performed well-organised displays that were intermediate between the parental species. However, in both reciprocal crosses, a significant bias towards the behaviour of the grandpaternal species was observed. Possible explanations for this effect are a biased recovery of genotypes, either due to nucleo-cytoplasmic interaction or non-mendelian transmission, or differential activation of genes in hybrid females. This study is a first step towards unravelling the genetic architecture of courtship behaviour of Nasonia, which may provide information about factors responsible for species isolation.
Beukeboom
L W
LW
Section Animal Ecology, Institute of Evolutionary and Ecological Sciences, University of Leiden, The Netherlands. Beukeboom@rulsfb.leidenuniv.nl
van den Assem
J
J
D000818:Animals; D003433:Crosses, Genetic; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D006824:Hybridization, Genetic; D006927:Hymenoptera / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010641:Phenotype; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D013045:Species Specificity