Cytoplasmic-nuclear incompatibility between wild-isolates of Caenorhabditis nouraguensis

How species arise is a fundamental question in biology. Species can be defined as populations of interbreeding individuals that are reproductively isolated from other such populations. Therefore, understanding how reproductive barriers evolve between populations is essential for understanding the process of speciation. Hybrid incompatibility (e.g. hybrid sterility and lethality) is a common and strong reproductive barrier in nature, but few studies have molecularly identified its genetic basis. Here we report a lethal incompatibility between two wild-isolates of the nematode Caenorhabditis nouraguensis. Hybrid inviability results from the incompatibility between a maternally inherited cytoplasmic factor from each strain and a recessive nuclear locus from the other. We have excluded the possibility that maternally inherited endosymbiotic bacteria cause the incompatibility by treating both strains with tetracycline and show that hybrid death is unaffected. Furthermore, cytoplasmic-nuclear incompatibility commonly occurs between other wild-isolates, indicating that this is a significant reproductive barrier within C. nouraguensis. We hypothesize that the maternally inherited cytoplasmic factor is the mitochondrial genome and that mitochondrial dysfunction underlies hybrid death. This system has the potential to shed light on the dynamics of divergent mitochondrial-nuclear coevolution and its role in promoting speciation.