Pleiotropic effects of environment-sensitive genes affecting fitness in relation to postmating reproductive isolation.

Abstract

With regard to speciation in sexually reproducing organisms, some population geneticists continue to argue about the relative merits of sympatry versus allopatry. However, all workers seem quite comfortable with the conventional scenario depicting how reproductive isolation arises between subpopulations in the state of incipient speciation. This view according to which the evolution of reproductive isolation mainly results from some genetic divergence consecutive to a substantial restriction in gene flow is questioned here. A verbal model is described in which gene flow is no longer seen as being first interrupted by a mere physical barrier. The model is based on limited genetic changes at loci influencing fitness but it places two important constraints on the properties of the genetic elements involved in it. One of them is concerned with the environment-sensitivity of the mutations implicated in the process, and the other with their presumed pleiotropic action on a behavioural trait.