A full understanding of how ecological factors drive the fixation of genetic changes during speciation is obscured by the lack of appropriate models with clear natural history and powerful genetic toolkits. In a recent study, we described an early stage of ecological speciation in a population of the generalist species Drosophila yakuba (melanogaster subgroup) on the island of Mayotte (Indian Ocean). On this island, flies are strongly associated with the toxic fruits of noni (Morinda citrifolia) and show a partial degree of pre-zygotic reproductive isolation. Here, I mine the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes and provide a full morphological description of this population. Only 29 nuclear sites (< 4 × 10⁻⁷ of the genome) are fixed in this population and absent from 3 mainland populations and the closest relative D. santomea, but no mitochondrial or morphological character distinguish Mayotte flies from the mainland. This result indicates that physiological and behavioral traits may evolve faster than morphology at the early stages of speciation. Based on these differences, the Mayotte population is designated as a new subspecies, Drosophila yakuba mayottensis subsp. nov., and its strong potential in understanding the genetics of speciation and plant-insect interactions is discussed.

缺乏适当的具有清晰自然历史和强大遗传工具的模型，使人们无法充分理解生态因素如何驱动物种形成过程中的遗传变化。在最近的研究中，我们描述的生态物种的早期阶段，在通才物种的种群果蝇yakuba（果蝇亚群）上岛（印度洋）的。在这个岛上，果蝇与诺丽（Morinda citrifolia）的有毒果实密切相关，并显示出部分合子前的生殖分离。在这里，我挖掘了核和线粒体基因组，并提供了该种群的完整形态描述。只有29个核电站（<4×10 ^-7在该种群中是固定的，在3个大陆种群和最接近的近缘D. santomea中均不存在，但没有线粒体或形态学特征将马约特果蝇与大陆分开。该结果表明，在物种形成的早期，生理和行为特征的演化可能比形态学更快。基于这些差异，马约特岛种群被指定为一种新的亚种，即果蝇雅库巴马亚诺特亚种。nov。，及其在理解物种形成和植物-昆虫相互作用的遗传学方面的强大潜力。