Short Review Sexual imprinting, learning and speciation

Learned mate preferences may play an important role in speciation. Sexual imprinting is a process whereby mate preferences are a€ected by learning at a very young age, usually using a parent as the model. We suggest that while the origins of learning appear to lie in the advantages of individual recognition, sexual imprinting results from selection for recognition of conspeci®cs. This is because ecient early learning about one's own species is favoured in the presence of heterospeci®cs. If di€erent species are hybridizing, both sexual imprinting and learning to avoid heterospeci®cs during adulthood promote assortative mating and hence speciation. As a result of sexual imprinting, speciation may also be completed in allopatry when divergence between populations is sucient to prevent interbreeding when the populations reunite, even in the absence of genetic evolution of mate preference. The role of behaviour and learning in completing the speciation process is relatively overlooked. In particular the evolution of sexual imprinting as a result of selection against hybridization warrants more study.