Genetic variation in Hawaiian Drosophila. IV. Allozymic similarity between D. silvestris and D. heteroneura from the island of Hawaii.

The species are endemic to the newest island in the archipelago and are broadly sympatric. They are easily distinguished morphologically in both sexes. Using standard electrophoretic procedures, we have examined 25 loci encoding for structural proteins from 539 silvestris and 325 heteroneura collected at three widely-separated localities where the two species are sympatric. Pairwise comparisons within and between the species show the following coefficients of genetic identity (NEI'S I): within silvestris, 0.961 +/- 0.01; within heteroneura, 0.949 +/- 0.02; between silvestris and heteroneura, 0.939 +/- 0.01. Neither the differences within nor between the species are significant. There are no fixed allelic diffrences either within or between the species. At the three areas of sympatry, the species show gene frequency differences (P less than 0.05) at 9,11 and 13 loci respectively. This is not much different from the variation within either one of the species across the three localities. The two species have similar heterozygosity (H) levels (silvestris, 0.083; heteroneura, 0.089) and percent of polymorphic loci (both 0.37). It is suggested that despite their morphological divergence, these species are much more newly formed than classical sibling species. Significant allozymic differences may not have had time to accumulate.