Learning magnifies individual variation in heterospecific mating propensity

Recent research indicating learning in the context of sexual behaviour in fruit flies suggests that learning could increase levels of assortative mating between partially diverged populations. We present a graphic model examining the role of learning and a series of experiments evaluating assumptions and predictions of the model. We found that male Drosophila persimilis that previously succeeded in mating with females of the sibling species, D. …