Male genital and wing morphology in the cactophilic sibling species D. gouveai and D. antonietae and their hybrids reared in different host plants

SOTO IM, SOTO EM, CORIO C, CARREIRA VP, MANFRIN M AND E HASSON

ENVIRONMENTAL ENTOMOLOGY

Entomological Society of America

Lugar: Mandham, Maryland (EEUU); Año: 2010 vol. 39 p. 865 - 873

0046-225X

Cactophilic Drosophila flies are excellent models to investigate adaptation to a relatively narrow spectrum of potential host plants, and host-driven evolutionary diversification. Previous studies suggested a complex genetic architecture of wing and male genital morphology in phylogenetically basal species of the D. buzzatii cluster. In this work we investigate the effect of experimental hybridization and host plant shifts on male genital and wing morphology in D. gouveai Tidon-Sklorz and Sene and D. antonietae Tidon-Sklorz and Sene a pair of more recently derived species. While we assessed the morphology of both species and hybrids, we tested the hypotheses that the phenotypic plastic responses elicited by host plant shifts (when flies of a given species adapted to a specific host plant are forced to grow in an alternative host) are affected by interspecific hybridization. Our study shows that cactus hosts exert a strong effect on genital and wing morphology and that hybrids can be clearly differentiated, on the basis of wing and genital morphology from both parental species. However, the extent of morphological differentiation between hybrids and pure species as well as the plasticity patterns varied across organs, suggesting a complex genetic architecture for the studied traits.