Search results for "premating reproductive isolation"

Do allopatric male Calopteryx virgo damselflies learn species recognition?

2012

There is a growing amount of empirical evidence that premating reproductive isolation of two closely related species can be reinforced by natural selection arising from avoidance of maladaptive hybridization. However, as an alternative for this popular reinforcement theory, it has been suggested that learning to prefer conspecifics or to discriminate heterospecifics could cause a similar pattern of reinforced premating isolation, but this possibility is much less studied. Here, we report results of a field experiment in which we examined (i) whether allopatric Calopteryx virgo damselfly males that have not encountered heterospecific females of the congener C. splendens initially show discri…