Unresolved questions in genitalia coevolution: bridging taxonomy, speciation, and developmental genetics
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Unresolved questions in genitalia coevolution: bridging taxonomy, speciation, and developmental genetics Amir Yassin 1
Received: 18 January 2016 / Accepted: 16 May 2016 # Gesellschaft für Biologische Systematik 2016
Abstract Systematists and geneticists study biological diversity, but they use different approaches that rarely intersect. A very common pattern that is of interest for both researchers is the rapid evolution of genitalia, a trait of significant taxonomic utility in several sexually reproducing animal clades. The idea that both male and female genitalia are species-specific and play a role in reproductive isolation has long been controversial but has recently gained a renewed interest by speciation and developmental geneticists. Here, I highlight six unresolved questions in genitalia coevolution and I argue that systematists, with their well training in comparative morphology, usage of large and geographically diverse collections, and ability to apply molecular genetics techniques, can make important contributions. Such an extension of systematics into the speciation and developmental genetics realms is a promising opportunity to expand Bintegrative taxonomy^ comparisons between DNA and morphology into more explanatory relationships between the two sources of taxonomic data. Keywords Integrative taxonomy . Comparativemorphology . Mechanical isolation . Introgressive hybridization . Character displacement . Pleiotropy . Evo-devo
Introduction Delimiting species is a central endeavor in systematics. For a long time, this task has almost exclusively relied on
* Amir Yassin [email protected] 1
Laboratory of Genetics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 425G Henry Mall, Madison, WI 53706, USA
morphology, leading to the accumulation of a wealth of comparative data. Systematists have then rapidly recognized that male genitalia are often among the most informative diagnostic traits, being highly variable between species and relatively stable within them (Dufour 1844; Eberhard 1985). Even today, when more sophisticated genetic methods of species delimitation successfully discover cryptic species, subtle differences in male genitalia often constitute the sole diagnostics of a type specimen that are required for the proper naming of a new species. The relationship between systematics, i.e., the study of patterns of diversity, and genetics, i.e., the study of populational and developmental processes generating such diversity, has not always been straightforward (Minelli 2015). Testing the congruence between genetic and morphological data in Bintegrative taxonomy^ (Dayrat 2005; Schlick-Steiner et al. 2010; Will et al. 2005) is certainly fruitful, but both sources of data are interdependent. Morphological variation is the result of changes in underlying genes, whereas the directionality and fate of these changes depend on selection acting on morphology. The rapid evolution of male genitalia represents one of few cases where a highly useful trait for systematists is also of wide interest for geneticists, henc
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