No abstract

No abstract

The ground crickets Allonemobius fasciatus and A. socius meet in a mosaic zone of overlap and hybridization stretching from the East Coast to at least Illinois. To test whether male calling song differences were enhanced in sympatry, we analyzed the songs of crickets from inside and outside the zone of overlap along two transects. No evidence of calling song displacement was found in A. socius males from populations within the zone of overlap. On the other hand, A. fasciatus displayed calling song displacement in three populations. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the selective pressure exerted by the challenge from a related species is frequency dependent. While not a conclusive demonstration, the observed shifts in calling song are strongly suggestive of reproductive character displacement.

No abstract

The structure of the hybrid zone between the ground crickets, Allonemobius socius and Allonemobius fasciatus, approximates an environmental mosaic based on temperature/moisture at regional spatial scales. In the present study, we show that the micro‐geographic spatial structure (i.e. single fields) of this hybrid zone is governed by the same criteria. Thus, the criteria that structure this hybrid zone are scale independent, even though the agents that implement these criteria may differ at various scales (climate, latitude, and elevation at regional scales; grass height, slope aspect, and field use at micro‐geographic scales). Additionally, the study demonstrates a previously unknown barrier to genetic exchange in this system that acts before conspecific sperm precedence. © 2008 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2008, 94, 777–796.