Figures
Host plant adaptation and reproductive isolation in a butterfly.
While this female lays small clutches of eggs near the plant's tip, females of the same species, Euphydryas editha, from allopatric populations that specialize on a different host plant, lay large clutches near the ground. Field studies (see McBride and Singer, e1000529) show that "hybrids" have intermediate traits that cause them to suffer reduced fitness, revealing a form of reproductive isolation can provide a substantial barrier to gene flow at the early stages of ecological divergence and speciation.
Image Credit: Damien Caillaud, University of Texas at Austin
Citation: (2010) PLoS Biology Issue Image | Vol. 8(10) October 2010. PLoS Biol 8(10): ev08.i10. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pbio.v08.i10
Published: October 26, 2010
Copyright: © 2010 Damien Caillaud. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
While this female lays small clutches of eggs near the plant's tip, females of the same species, Euphydryas editha, from allopatric populations that specialize on a different host plant, lay large clutches near the ground. Field studies (see McBride and Singer, e1000529) show that "hybrids" have intermediate traits that cause them to suffer reduced fitness, revealing a form of reproductive isolation can provide a substantial barrier to gene flow at the early stages of ecological divergence and speciation.
Image Credit: Damien Caillaud, University of Texas at Austin