Evolution Diary

Cornell researchers have made the first identification of a pair of genes in any species that are responsible for problems unique to hybrids. For example, a mule, the result of the mating of a horse and a donkey, is sterile.

Now, Cornell researchers have made the first identification of a pair of genes in any species that are responsible for problems unique to hybrids. Specifically, the researchers have found two genes from two fruit fly species (Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans) that interfere with each other, thereby preventing the production of male offspring.

• The finding may eventually shed light on what causes lethality or sterility in hybrids in general and, in a larger sense, offers clues to how species evolve from common ancestors.
• The finding supports the Dobzhansky-Muller model, a theory from the 1930s that suggests hybrid incompatibilities (such as death or sterility) are caused by genes that have evolved from a common ancestor but diverged in each of the species. More specifically, in the common ancestor, these genes may have worked perfectly well together. But, as each gene evolved in its own species, it began to code for proteins that no longer work in the other species.
  

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