Identifying the factors that contribute to divergence among populations in mate preferences is important for understanding of the manner in which premating reproductive isolation might arise and how this isolation may in turn contribute to the evolutionary process of population divergence. Here, we offered female northern grass lizards (Takydromus septentrionalis) a choice of males between their own population and another four populations to test whether the preferences that females display in the mating trials correlate with phenotypic adaptation to local environments, or to the neutral genetic distance measured by divergence of mitochondrial DNA sequence loci. Females showed a strong preference for native over foreign males. Females that mated with native versus foreign males did not differ from each other in mating latency, or copulation duration. From results of the structural equation modelling we knew that: 1) geographical distance directly contributed to genetic differentiation and environmental dissimilarity; 2) genetic differentiation and environmental dissimilarity indirectly contributed to female mate preference, largely through their effects on morphological divergence; and 3) females judged mates by body shape (appearance) and discriminated more strongly against morphologically less familiar allopatric males. Local adaptation rather than neutral genetic distance influences female mate preference in T. septentrionalis. The tendency to avoid mating with foreign males may indicate that, in T. septentrionalis, local adaptations are more valuable than genetic novelties. Our results highlight the importance of comprehensive studies integrating ecological, molecular and behavioral approaches to understand population divergence in female mate preferences as the consequence of local adaptations.

中文翻译：

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雌性北方草蜥通过体型判断配偶以加强当地适应。

确定导致种群之间配偶偏好差异的因素对于理解前生殖隔离可能出现的方式以及这种隔离如何反过来促进种群差异的进化过程非常重要。在这里，我们为雌性北方草蜥 (Takydromus septentrionalis) 提供了在它们自己的种群和另外四个种群之间选择雄性，以测试雌性在交配试验中表现出的偏好是否与表型对当地环境或中性遗传距离的适应相关通过线粒体 DNA 序列基因座的差异来测量。与外国男性相比，女性表现出对本地人的强烈偏好。与本地雄性和外国雄性交配的雌性在交配潜伏期上没有区别，或交配时间。从结构方程模型的结果我们知道：1）地理距离直接导致遗传分化和环境差异；2）遗传分化和环境差异间接促成了雌性配偶的偏好，主要是通过它们对形态差异的影响；3）雌性通过体型（外观）来判断配偶，并且更强烈地区分形态上不太熟悉的异域雄性。局部适应而不是中性遗传距离影响 T. septentrionalis 的雌性配偶偏好。避免与外国雄性交配的趋势可能表明，在 T. septentrionalis 中，局部适应比遗传新奇更有价值。我们的研究结果强调了综合研究整合生态的重要性，