Syntopy promotes song divergence in a Neotropical avian radiation
Theory predicts that selection against maladaptive hybridization leads to divergence of sexual characters in co-occurring closely related species. Consequently, signal disparity should be greater between sympatric vs. allopatric lineage pairs. However, this pattern may also result from species sorti...
| Autores: | , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2025 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) |
| Repositorio: | DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:digital.csic.es:10261/393347 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10261/393347 https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/105005352196 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Rhinocryptidae Character displacement Elevational overlap Sexual trait Sympatry Tapaculos |
| Sumario: | Theory predicts that selection against maladaptive hybridization leads to divergence of sexual characters in co-occurring closely related species. Consequently, signal disparity should be greater between sympatric vs. allopatric lineage pairs. However, this pattern may also result from species sorting or the greater evolutionary age of sympatric pairs. We used species pairs comparisons to examine the existence of acoustic divergence in a Neotropical montane radiation, the Rhinocryptidae, whose members tend to occupy different elevational ranges. Most rhinocryptids exhibit conservative morphology and are only differentiated by song attributes. Our results show that sympatric species pairs that overlap in elevation exhibited overall greater song divergence compared to allopatric species pairs after controlling for morphological differences, age and phylogenetic effects. Song divergence decreased when excluding sympatric pairs that do not overlap in elevation, suggesting that selection for improved species identification between co-occurring (syntopic) species accentuates signal differentiation. Comparative evolutionary models of signal differentiation over time revealed a similar pattern, which suggests that sexual selection in syntopy might have driven reproductive character displacement in this radiation. We conclude that selection against the production of unfit hybrids could favor acoustic traits that reliably signal species identity in tropical environments where many taxa are poorly differentiated by visual attributes. |
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