Honeysuckle maggot
| Honeysuckle maggot | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Rhagoletis mendax × zephyria | ||||||||||||
| Schwarz , Matta , Shakir-Botteri & McPheron |
The so-called honeysuckle maggot is a new species of fruit or bored flies that has developed from the species Rhagoletis mendax and Rhagoletis zephyria through hybridization in just 250 years . This has been determined by a team of researchers from Pennsylvania State University led by Dietmar Schwarz. The results were presented in the journal Nature .
The new insect species is named " Lonicera Fly" after its host plant, the Asian tartar honeysuckle ( Lonicera tatarica ) . The parent species Rhagoletis mendax Curran 1932 attacks blueberries ( Vaccinium sect. Cyanococcus ), the species R. zephria Snow 1894 lives in snowberries . The species belong to the so-called " Rhagoletis pomonella species complex", together with the apple fruit fly ( R. pomonella ), R. cornivora (on dogwood ), two undescribed species ("sparkleberry fly", on Vaccinium arboreum , and "flowering dogwood fly") ", On flowering dogwoods ) and three other populations (" plum fly "," mayhaw fly ", on summer hawthorn , and" Mexican R. pomonella "). The species is morphologically indistinguishable ( cryptospecies ) and can only be recognized by genetic markers and the host plant.
The parent species each ignore the host plant of the other species. However, both parent species may accept honeysuckle fruits for egg-laying. The following scenario seems likely: With the introduction of the Asian Lonicera tatarica to North America, the parent species came into contact with one another more frequently for the first time, which had previously been isolated from one another due to the different host preferences (i.e. ecologically). As a result, the previously existing reproduction barrier collapsed. The new host also gave the new hybrid species an unoccupied ecological niche in which it was largely withdrawn from competition with the parent species.
meaning
Species formation through hybridization between related species is a rare process in animals, in contrast to plants. The hybrid treated here was also made without duplicating the set of chromosomes (cf. polyploidy ), since the hybrid, like the parent species, is diploid; it is a so-called "homoploid" hybridization. In this case, the newly created hybrid is not, as in the polyploid case, suddenly and reproductively isolated from the parent species; more or less extensive backcrossing is to be expected, so that the genetic share of the parent species is not necessarily 50 percent. A few, but relatively few, cases of speciation by homoploid hybridization have become known in the animal kingdom. This is the first documented case in which the hybridization between two host-specific animal species was accompanied by a host plant change to a completely new host.
literature
- Dietmar Schwarz et al: Host shift to an invasive plant triggers rapid animal hybrid speciation . In: Nature 436 (2005), pp. 546-549, ISSN 0028-0836 ( abstract )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dietmar Schwarz, Benjamin M. Matta, Nicole L. Shakir-Botteri, Bruce A. McPheron (2005): Host shift to an invasive plant triggers rapid animal hybrid speciation. Nature 436: 546-549 doi : 10.1038 / nature03800
- ↑ Dietmar Schwarz, Katrina D. Shoemaker, Nicole L. Botteri, Bruce A. McPheron (2007): A novel preference for an invasive plant as a mechanism for animal hybrid speciation. Evolution 61 (2): 245-256. doi : 10.1111 / j.1558-5646.2007.00027.x
- ↑ James Mallet (2007): Hybrid speciation. Nature 446: 279-283. doi : 10.1038 / nature05706