1. School of Integrative Biology, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia
2. Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, PO Box 975, Atherton, Queensland 4883, Australia
3. Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA

Correspondence to: Conrad J. Hoskin¹ Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to C.J.H. (Email: c.hoskin@sib.uq.edu.au). Sequences are deposited in the EMBL database under the following accession numbers: AF304205–AF304229 (ref. 11) and AJ872186–AJ872201.

Allopatric speciation results from geographic isolation between populations. In the absence of gene flow, reproductive isolation arises gradually and incidentally as a result of mutation, genetic drift and the indirect effects of natural selection driving local adaptation^{1, 2, 3}. In contrast, speciation by reinforcement is driven directly by natural selection against maladaptive hybridization^{1, 4}. This gives individuals that choose the traits of their own lineage greater fitness, potentially leading to rapid speciation between the lineages^{1, 4}. Reinforcing natural selection on a population of one of the lineages in a mosaic contact zone could also result in divergence of the population from the allopatric range of its own lineage outside the zone^{4, 5, 6}. Here we test this with molecular data, experimental crosses, field measurements and mate choice experiments in a mosaic contact zone between two lineages of a rainforest frog. We show that reinforcing natural selection has resulted in significant premating isolation of a population in the contact zone not only from the other lineage but also, incidentally, from the closely related main range of its own lineage. Thus we show the potential for reinforcement to drive rapid allopatric speciation.

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