Courtship and mating behaviour of interspecific Nasonia hybrids (Hymenoptera, Pteromalidae): A grandfather effect

Nasonia courtship behaviour includes easily quantifiable, stereotyped compo nents. We analysed displays of N. vitripennis X N. longicornis hybrid males . Most of them performed well-organised displays that were intermediate bet ween the parental species. However, in both reciprocal crosses, a significa nt bias towards the behaviour of the grandpaternal species was observed. Po ssible explanations for this effect are a biased recovery of genotypes, eit her due to nucleo-cytoplasmic interaction or non-mendelian transmission, or differential activation of genes in hybrid females. This study is a first step towards unravelling the genetic architecture of courtship behaviour of Nasonia, which may provide information about factors responsible for speci es isolation.