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Mate Discrimination of Colocasiomyia xenalocasiae and C. alocasiae (Diptera: Drosophilidae) as a Possible Factor Contributing to their Co-Existence on the Same Host Plant

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Abstract

Mate discrimination contributes to the co-existence of related species by reducing the risk of interspecific copulation. In pollination mutualistic systems where pollinators utilize host plants as mating places, sharing of host plants with other related species could increase non-adaptive interspecific copulation. Although such host-sharing species are expected to have strong mate discrimination systems, little is known about whether and how they discriminate species for mating. Here, we investigate mate discrimination of two fly species, Colocasiomyia xenalocasiae and C. alocasiae (Diptera: Drosophilidae), which share host plants; they are essentially anthophilous, depending exclusively on specific aroid host plants throughout their entire life cycles. Our field observations showed that the males of C. alocasiae and C. xenalocasiae preferentially paired with conspecific, but not heterospecific, females. This indicates that they discriminate species for mating in the natural habitat. Such mate discrimination was also observed under laboratory conditions. To investigate how these flies discriminate species, we defined distinct behavioral elements in courtship sequence in both species, and compared sexual interactions in each element between conspecific and heterospecific pairs. We found that males discriminate female whilst tapping, whereas females discriminate male before or during males’ attempted mounting. This suggests that mate discrimination systems in both males and females reduce the incidence of heterospecific mounting; mounting is a necessary step in the sequence of courtship for successful copulation. The mate discrimination system found in this study potentially allows for the co-existence of C. xenalocasiae and C. alocasiae on the same host plant by effectively suppressing interspecific copulation.

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Data Availability

Data of mounding index in C. xenalocasiae and C. alocasiae in conspecific and heterospecific pairs are provided in the electronic supplementary material 10.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Kohei Takenaka Takano and Dr. Matthew Paul Su for discussion; Ryota Nishimura at Technical Center of Nagoya University for production of the chambers for the behavioral experiments. This study was supported by MEXT KAKENHI Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (Grant JP20H03355 to AK; JP18H02488 to YI), Scientific Research on Innovative Areas “Evolinguistics” (Grant JP20H04997 to AK), “Systems science of bio-navigation” (Grant JP19H04933 to AK), ”Evolutionary theory for constrained and directional diversities” (Grant JP20H04865 to YI), Grant-in-Aid for Transformative Research Areas (A) “iPlasticity” (Grant JP21H05689 to AK), Challenging Research (Exploratory) (Grant JP19K22453 to YI), Grant-in Aid for Early-Career Scientists (JP19K16186 and JP21K15137 for RT), JST FOREST (Grant JPMJFR2147 to AK) and JST PRESTO (Grant JPMJPR21S2 to YI), Japan.

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RT, YI, and AK contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection were performed by RT and HT. Analysis was performed by RT. The first draft of the manuscript was written by RT, YI, and AK. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yuki Ishikawa or Azusa Kamikouchi.

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The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. All authors certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript. The authors have no financial or proprietary interests in any material discussed in this article.

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Supplementary Information

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ESM 1

Mounting index of C. xenalocasiae in conspecific or heterospecific pairs in each chamber (14 chambers for conspecific pairs; 18 chambers for heterospecific pairs). (CSV 1.11 KB)

ESM 2

Mounting index of C. alocasiae in conspecific or heterospecific pairs in each chamber (14 chambers for conspecific pairs; 36 chambers for heterospecific pairs). (CSV 1.22 KB)

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Tanaka, R., Takekata, H., Ishikawa, Y. et al. Mate Discrimination of Colocasiomyia xenalocasiae and C. alocasiae (Diptera: Drosophilidae) as a Possible Factor Contributing to their Co-Existence on the Same Host Plant. J Insect Behav 35, 44–55 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10905-022-09798-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10905-022-09798-0

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