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Concept
Evidence for speciation by reinforcement
Summary
Reinforcement is a process within speciation where natural selection increases the reproductive isolation between two populations of species by reducing the production of hybrids. Evidence for speciation by reinforcement has been gathered since the 1990s, and along with data from comparative studies and laboratory experiments, has overcome many of the objections to the theory. Differences in behavior or biology that inhibit formation of hybrid zygotes are termed prezygotic isolation. Reinforcement can be shown to be occurring (or to have occurred in the past) by measuring the strength of prezygotic isolation in a sympatric population in comparison to an allopatric population of the same species. Comparative studies of this allow for determining large-scale patterns in nature across various taxa. Mating patterns in hybrid zones can also be used to detect reinforcement. Reproductive character displacement is seen as a result of reinforcement, so many of the cases in nature express this pattern in sympatry. Reinforcement's prevalence is unknown, but the patterns of reproductive character displacement are found across numerous taxa (vertebrates, invertebrates, plants, and fungi), and is considered to be a common occurrence in nature. Studies of reinforcement in nature often prove difficult, as alternative explanations for the detected patterns can be asserted. Nevertheless, empirical evidence exists for reinforcement occurring across various taxa and its role in precipitating speciation is conclusive.
The two frog species Litoria ewingi and L. verreauxii live in southern Australia with their two ranges overlapping. The species have very similar calls in allopatry, but express clinal variation in sympatry, with notable distinctness in calls that generate female preference discrimination. The zone of overlap sometimes forms hybrids and is thought to originate by secondary contact of once fully allopatric populations.
Allopatric populations of Gastrophryne olivacea and G. carolinensis have recently come into secondary contact due to forest clearing.
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