| heal.abstract |
Cicada orni L. is one of the most common cicadas in Greece (and in Europe). On the other hand Cicada mordoganensis Boulard, a very closely related species previously known from Turkey, has recently been found in the island of Samos being, therefore, a new record to Greece. These species are morphologically very similar but males can easily be distinguished by their calling songs, i.e., despite very low levels of morphological differentiation, these species diverged considerably in their acoutic signals. In order to investigate whether this acoustic divergence is associated with genetic differentiation, a population of C. orni from the Greek mainland (Athens) and another population of C. mordoganensis from the island of Samos were electrophoretically analysed for 13 enzymes coded by 19 presumptive loci. Both populations showed low genetic variability, especially the population of C. mordoganensis. In addition, there was very little genetic divergence between them. These results also suggest that divergence at the acoustic level is not associated with differentiation at the allozyme level, and that founder effects might have occurred in C. mordoganensis probably as a result of the recent colonization of the island of Samos. |
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