Question

Sexual selection favors individuals with traits that increase their ability to obtain mates, such as mating calls in crickets. using this example, propose a scenario where sexual selection could contribute to divergence in sympatric speciation.

Answer 1

The crickets that are able to make mating calls will mate selectively within each other while those that cannot mate among themselves. If this selective mating continues over time – tens to thousands of years, then the two population could reach a point where they become reproductively isolated to form distinct species.

Sympatric speciation is the evolution of species from an ancestral population occupying the same geographical location.