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Specialized Feeding Behavior Influences Both Ecological Specialization and Assortative Mating in Sympatric Host Races of Pea Aphids

Not only is ecological specialization a defining feature of much of Earth's biological diversity, the evolution of specialization may also play a central role in generating diversity by facilitating speciation. To understand how ecological specialization evolves, we must know the particular characters that cause organisms to be specialized. For example, most theories of specialization in herbivorous insects emphasize physiological trade‐offs in response to toxic plant chemicals. However, even in herbivores, it is likely that other characters are also involved in resource specialization. Knowing the causes of ecological specialization is also crucial for linking specialization to speciation. When the same character(s) that cause specialization also influence assortative mating, speciation may occur particularly rapidly because specialization and reproductive isolation become coupled in a positive feedback that speeds the evolution of both. Indeed, a central hypothesis in the study of ecological speciation is that specialization in recently diverged taxa may often be due to characters that also produce assortative mating. We test this hypothesis by evaluating the causes of ecological specialization among host‐associated populations of an herbivorous insect, the pea aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum). These populations are highly specialized on different host plants (alfalfa or clover; “alternate hosts”), and the races are partially reproductively isolated. Here, we identify key characters responsible for host plant specialization. Our results suggest that the major proximal determinant of host specialization is the behavioral acceptance of a plant rather than the toxicity of the food source. Pea aphids rapidly assess alfalfa and clover and reject the alternate host based on chemical cues that are perceived before the initiation of feeding. This rapid behavioral rejection of the alternate host by a given race has two consequences. First, unrestrained aphids quickly leave the alternate host and search for other plants. Because pea aphids mate on their host plants, divergence in host acceptance among ecologically specialized races leads to congregation on the favored host. This results in de facto assortative mating when sexual forms are produced in late summer. Second, specialized aphids that are held on the alternate host will not feed in a 7.2‐h trial, even in the face of starvation. Thus, a complex trait, behavioral acceptance of a plant as host, influences both reproductive isolation (through host‐associated assortative mating) and ecological specialization (because of low nutritional uptake on the alternate host). This dual influence of feeding behavior on both assortative mating and resource specialization is central to the maintenance of these divergent races, and it may also have been involved in their origin.