Quantitative trait locus analysis of mating behavior and male sex pheromones in Nasonia wasps
Abstract
A major focus in speciation genetics is to identify the chromosomal regions and genes that reduce hybridization and gene flow. We investigated the genetic architecture of mating behavior in the parasitoid wasp species pair Nasonia giraulti and Nasonia oneida that exhibit strong prezygotic isolation. Behavioral analysis showed that N. oneida females had consistently higher latency times, and broke off the mating sequence more often in the mounting stage when confronted with N. giraulti males compared with males of their own species. N. oneida males produce a lower quantity of the long-range male sex pheromone (4R,5S)-5-hydroxy-4-decanolide (RS-HDL). Crosses between the two species yielded hybrid males with various pheromone quantities, and these males were used in mating trials with females of either species to measure female mate discrimination rates. A quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis involving 475 recombinant hybrid males (F2), 2148 reciprocally backcrossed females (F3), and a linkage map of 52 equally spaced neutral single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers plus SNPs in 40 candidate mating behavior genes revealed four QTL for male pheromone amount, depending on partner species. Our results demonstrate that the RS-HDL pheromone plays a role in the mating system of N. giraulti and N. oneida, but also that additional communication cues are involved in mate choice. No QTL were found for female mate discrimination, which points at a polygenic architecture of female choice with strong environmental influences.
Citation
Diao , W , Mousset , M , Horsburgh , G J , Vermeulen , C J , Johannes , F , van de Zande , L , Ritchie , M G , Schmitt , T & Beukeboom , L W 2016 , ' Quantitative trait locus analysis of mating behavior and male sex pheromones in Nasonia wasps ' , G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics , vol. 6 , no. 6 , pp. 1549-1562 . https://doi.org/10.1534/g3.116.029074
Publication
G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2160-1836Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2016 Diao et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Description
SNP genotyping was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), UK, and performed at NERC Bio-molecular Analysis Facility (NBAF) at the University of Sheffield with project number NBAF653. This study was funded by Marie Curie Initial Training Network “Understanding the evolutionary origin of biological diversity” (ITN-2008-213780 SPECIATION). F.J. acknowledges support from the Technische Universität München – Institute for Advanced Study, funded by the German Excellence Initiative and the European Union Seventh Framework Program under grant agreement no. 291763.Collections
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