Data from: Cuticular hydrocarbon divergence in the jewel wasp Nasonia: evolutionary shifts in chemical communication channels?
Data files
Aug 29, 2013 version files 812.19 KB
-
Behavioral assays.xlsx
47.53 KB
-
Distribution of CHC compounds.xlsx
42.29 KB
-
LDA scaling function values.xlsx
76.08 KB
-
Nasonia GC-MS raw data.zip
331.06 KB
-
Normalized peak areas.xlsx
165.13 KB
-
Phylogenetic distance matrix.xlsx
35.28 KB
-
Replicated Mantel tests.xls
21.50 KB
-
Trichomalopsis GC-MS raw data.zip
93.33 KB
Abstract
The evolution and maintenance of intraspecific communication channels constitutes a key feature of chemical signaling and sexual communication. However, how divergent chemical communication channels evolve while maintaining their integrity for both sender and receiver is poorly understood. In the present study, we compare male and female cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) profiles in the jewel wasp genus Nasonia, analyze their chemical divergence, and investigate their role as species-specific sexual signaling cues. Males and females of all four Nasonia species showed unique, non-overlapping CHC profiles unambiguously separating them. Surprisingly, male and female phylogenies based on the chemical distances between their CHC profiles differed dramatically, where only male CHC divergence parallels the molecular phylogeny of Nasonia. In particular, N. giraulti female CHC profiles were the most divergent from all other species and very different from its most closely related sibling species N. oneida. Furthermore, although our behavioural assays indicate that female CHC can generally be perceived as sexual cues attracting males in Nasonia, this function has apparently been lost in the highly divergent female N. giraulti CHC profiles. Curiously, N. giraulti males are still attracted to heterospecific, but not to conspecific female CHC profiles. We suggest that this striking discrepancy has been caused by an extensive evolutionary shift in female N. giraulti CHC profiles, which are no longer used as conspecific recognition cues. Our study constitutes the first report of an apparent abandonment of a sexual recognition cue that the receiver did not adapt to.