The Role of Mating Preferences in Shaping Interspecific Divergence in Mating Signals in Mollies (Poeciliidae: Poecilia: Mollienesia).

交配偏好在形成种间交配信号分化中的作用。玛格丽特·B·普塔克斯雌性交配偏好在塑造物种内雄性交配信号特征方面的重要性已经得到了很好的证实。然而，物种内雌性交配偏好对物种间交配信号差异的影响才刚刚开始探索。该项目旨在探索雌性交配偏好在产生和维持与帆鳍科和短鳍鼹鼠(Poeciliidae：Poecilia：Mollienesia)分化相关的行为和形态变化中的作用。翻车鱼是此类研究的理想模型系统，因为它们在种内和种间的雄性第二性特征和交配行为上表现出巨大的多样性。鼹鼠的两个主要物种复合体(帆鳍和短鳍)的差异与它们交配系统的差异有关。雄性帆鳍的背鳍非常大，在雌性前面呈扇形，这是一种独特的求偶表演，用来吸引雌性在交配时合作。短鳍种雄鱼既不表现出增大的背鳍，也不表现出求偶行为。以前的研究表明，雌性帆鳍物种利用扩大的背鳍和求偶展示的特殊特征来区分自己物种的不同雄性，以及自己物种的雄性和短鳍物种的雄性。这种在种内和种间水平上相似的雌性交配偏好的模式表明，性别选择可能在促进帆鳍和短鳍翻车鱼之间这些特征的差异方面发挥了重要作用。此外，还确定了整个Molly类群的系统发育(系谱)关系。这一系统发育将提供一个框架，在此基础上研究雄性第二性征和行为的起源和变化方向，以及雌性对这些特征的偏爱在一些帆鳍和短鳍莫利物种中的起源。这里提出的研究将确定雌性交配偏好如何在物种内和物种之间塑造雄性交配信号的差异。很少有人对性别选择和物种识别之间的关系进行测试，而鼹鼠提供了一个理想的系统来研究这种联系。这些研究结果将为性选择如何导致一类已知的行为、生态和生活史特征进化的池鱼种群的优先生殖隔离机制和最终物种形成的进化提供一个重要的模型。

The role of mating preferences in shaping interspecific divergence in mating signals in mollies (Poeciliidae: Poecilia: Molliensia). Margaret B. PtacekThe importance of female mating preferences in shaping the features of male mating signals within a species is well established. However, the influence of female mating preferences within a species on the divergence of these mating signals between species is just beginning to be explored. This project is designed to explore the role of female mating preferences in generating and maintaining the behavioral and morphological changes associated with divergence between sailfin and shortfin mollies (Poeciliidae: Poecilia: Mollienesia). Mollies are an ideal model system for such a study because they exhibit enormous diversity in male secondary sexual characteristics and mating behaviors both within and between species. Differences in the two major species complexes of mollies (sailfin and shortfin species) are associated with divergence in their mating systems. Males of sailfin species have a greatly enlarged dorsal fin that they fan in front of females in a characteristic courtship display used to elicit female cooperation in mating. Males of shortfin species show neither the enlarged dorsal fin nor perform courtship display behavior. Previous studies have shown that females of sailfin species use particular features of the enlarged dorsal fin and courtship display to distinguish both between different males of their own species and between males of their own species and males of shortfin species. Such a pattern of similar female mating preferences at both the intra- and interspecific levels argues that sexual selection may have played an important role in promoting the divergence in these traits between sailfin and shortfin species of mollies. In addition, the phylogenetic (genealogical) relationships of the entire molly group have been determined. This phylogeny will provide a framework upon which to study the origin and direction of change in male secondary sexual traits and behaviors as well as the origin of female preferences for these traits in a number of sailfin and shortfin molly species. The research proposed here will determine how female mating preferences can shape the divergence of male mating signals both within and between species. Few tests of the relationship between sexual selection and species recognition have been performed and mollies offer an ideal system in which to investigate this link. The results of the proposed studies will provide an important model for how sexual selection might lead to the evolution of premating reproductive isolating mechanisms and eventual speciation in a group of poeciliid fishes for which much is already known about behavioral, ecological and life history trait evolution.