Why can some animals from different species mate and produce healthy offspring, while others can’t? Closely related species can sometimes reproduce, but the further apart they are on the evolutionary tree, the more likely their hybrid offspring will struggle to survive. These genetic barriers are key to understanding how new species arise, but scientists are still piecing together when and why they appear. To explore this, Francisco Pelegri, Ryan Trevena and their colleagues at the University of Wisconsin–Madison turned to zebrafish and related species. Read More
By creating hybrid fish in the lab, they were able to explore what happens when similar species reproduce. The team used zebrafish as the maternal species and fertilized their eggs with sperm from four related species: Danio kyathit, Danio albolineatus, Danio margaritatus, and Devario aequipinnatus. These relatives range from very closely related to more distantly related, allowing the researchers to test the health of hybrid offspring depending on how genetically different the parent species are.
In the earliest stages of development, the hybrid embryos all looked normal. Fertilization worked, and the first few hours of cell division went smoothly. After that, however, problems started to arise. The more distantly related the paternal species was, the worse the outcomes.
Hybrids with Devario aequipinnatus – the most distantly related species to the zebrafish – didn’t survive beyond the earliest embryonic stages. Those with Danio margaritatus had a mix of outcomes – some embryos looked normal at first, while others developed major defects and died early.
Hybrids with the more the closely related species did better. Some grew into swimming juveniles and even matured into adults. But even these seemingly successful hybrids grew more slowly and inconsistently than purebred zebrafish.
The problems didn’t end with growth. When the hybrid males reached adulthood, nearly all of them were sterile. Their testes were smaller than normal, they had fewer sperm, and their sperm often had broken or stunted tails.
Only in the case of the closest species match – zebrafish crossed with Danio kyathit – did any hybrid males manage to fertilize eggs and produce a second generation. Even then, none of the second-generation offspring survived to adulthood.
The team’s results show that when there is significant evolutionary distance between parent species, the problems in the hybrid offspring are more severe. This supports a classic idea in evolutionary biology known as the Dobzhansky–Muller model, which suggests that as populations diverge over time, their genes evolve in separate directions. Eventually, if these divergent populations meet and attempt to reproduce, they can’t.
The study by Pelegri and Travena offers fascinating insights into where those genetic incompatibilities start to appear. By using zebrafish as a constant and varying only the paternal species, they were able to trace how small genetic differences can lead to increasing problems as development unfolds – from early embryo to adult fertility.
