The likely force behind an explosion of new Hawaiian cricket species is revealed.
Abstract
Theory predicts that sexual behaviour in animals can evolve rapidly, accelerating the rate of species formation1,2. Here we estimate the rate of speciation in Laupala, a group of forest-dwelling Hawaiian crickets that is characterized primarily through differences in male courtship song3. We find that Laupala has the highest rate of speciation so far recorded in arthropods, supporting the idea that divergence in courtship or sexual behaviour drives rapid speciation in animals.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
West Eberhard, M. J. Q. Rev. Biol. 58, 155–183 (1983).
Pomiankowski, A. & Iwasa, Y. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 95, 5106–5111 (1998).
Otte, D. in The Crickets of Hawaii: Origin, Systematics, and Evolution (Orthoptera Society/Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1994).
Carson, H. L. & Clague, D. A. in Hawaiian Biogeography: Evolution on a Hot Spot Archipelago (eds Wagner, W. L. & Funk, V. A.) 14–29 (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC, 1995).
Coyne, J. A. & Orr, H. A. Speciation (Sinauer, Sunderland, Massachusetts, 2004).
McCune, A. R. in Molecular Evolution and Adaptive Radiation (eds Givnish, T. J. & Sytsma, K. J.) 585–610 (Cambridge Univ. Press, New York, 1997).
Losos, J. & Schluter, D. Nature 408, 847–850 (2000).
Parsons, Y. M. & Shaw, K. L. Mol. Ecol. 10, 1765–1772 (2001).
Mendelson, T. C., Siegel, A. M. & Shaw, K. L. Mol. Ecol. 13, 3787–3796 (2004).
Mendelson, T. C. & Shaw, K. L. Genetica 116, 301–310 (2002).
Shaw, K. L. in Hawaiian Biogeography: Evolution on a Hot Spot Archipelago (eds Wagner, W. L. & Funk, V. A.) 39–56 (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC, 1995).
Knight, M. E. & Turner, G. F. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 271, 675–680 (2004).
Schluter, D. Trends Ecol. Evol. 16, 372–380 (2001).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Methods
Phylogeny estimation. (DOC 63 kb)
Supplementary Table
Rates of speciation (SRln) for Laupala, estimated at three stages of diversification. (DOC 24 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mendelson, T., Shaw, K. Rapid speciation in an arthropod. Nature 433, 375–376 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/433375a
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/433375a
This article is cited by
-
Machine learning and statistical classification of birdsong link vocal acoustic features with phylogeny
Scientific Reports (2023)
-
Evolutionary conservation and diversification of auditory neural circuits that process courtship songs in Drosophila
Scientific Reports (2023)
-
Genome editing reveals fitness effects of a gene for sexual dichromatism in Sulawesian fishes
Nature Communications (2021)
-
Evolutionary insights into the eco-phenotypic diversification of Dysdera spiders in the Canary Islands
Organisms Diversity & Evolution (2021)
-
Phylogenomic analysis sheds light on the evolutionary pathways towards acoustic communication in Orthoptera
Nature Communications (2020)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.