Divergence in Multiple Courtship Song Traits between Drosophila santomea and D. yakuba

Abstract

The courtship song of Drosophila is useful for species recognition and sexual selection. A new species of the melanogaster group of Drosophila, D. santomea, has recently been described from the island of Sao Tomein the Gulf of Guinea. We describe the courtship song of D. santomea and compare it with that of its sibling species D. yakuba. Both species have a relatively unusual song pattern for melanogaster-group species, in that they have two types of pulse song but no sine song. There are large dif- ferences in the inter-pulse interval of both types of song, but no major differences in pulse shape or intrapulse frequency between the species. The song of D. yakuba is similar in lines from the African mainland (allo- patric to D. santomea) and from Sao Tome´ (sympatric). We test if song pattern might influence sexual isolation by examining the mating suc- cess of wingless males with homo- and hetero-specific females. We show that song pattern contributes to sexual stimulation, but the differences in song patterns alone are unlikely to explain patterns of sexual isola- tion such as the asymmetrical isolation seen between species.