English
 
Help Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Released

Journal Article

Reduced male fertility is common but highly variable in form and severity in a natural house mouse hybrid zone

MPS-Authors
/persons/resource/persons56976

Turner,  Leslie M.
Department Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons56714

Harr,  Bettina
Department Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;

External Resource
No external resources are shared
Fulltext (restricted access)
There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.
Fulltext (public)
There are no public fulltexts stored in PuRe
Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Turner, L. M., Schwahn, D. J., & Harr, B. (2012). Reduced male fertility is common but highly variable in form and severity in a natural house mouse hybrid zone. Evolution, 66(2), 443-458. doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01445.x.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-000F-D336-A
Abstract
Barriers to gene flow between naturally hybridizing taxa reveal the initial stages of speciation. Reduced hybrid fertility is a common feature of reproductive barriers separating recently diverged species. In house mice (Mus musculus), hybrid male sterility has been studied extensively using experimental crosses between subspecies. Here, we present the first detailed picture of hybrid male fertility in the European M. m. domesticus—M. m. musculus hybrid zone. Complete sterility appears rare or absent in natural hybrids but a large proportion of males (∼30%)have sperm count or relative testis weight below the range in pure subspecies, and likely suffer reduced fertility. Comparison of a suite of traits related to fertility among subfertile males indicates reduced hybrid fertility in the contact zone is highly variable among individuals and ancestry groups in the type, number, and severity of spermatogenesis defects present. Taken together, these results suggest multiple underlying genetic incompatibili- ties are segregating in the hybrid zone, which likely contribute to reproductive isolation between subspecies.