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Background  Animals utilize a wide variety of tactics to attract reproductive partners. Behavioral experiments often indicate an important role for visual cues in fish, but their molecular basis remains almost entirely unknown. Studies on model species (such as zebrafish and medaka) allow investigations into this fundamental question in behavioral and evolutionary biology.    Results  Through mate-choice experiences using several laboratory strains of various body colors, we successfully identified one medaka mutant ( color interfere ;  ci ) that is distinctly unattractive to reproductive partners. This unattractiveness seems to be due to reduced orange pigment cells (xanthophores) in the skin. The  ci  strain carries a mutation on the  somatolactin alpha  ( SLa ) gene, therefore we expected over-expression of  SLa  to make medaka hyper-attractive. Indeed, extremely strong mating preferences were detected in a choice between the  ci  and  SLa -transgenic (Actb-SLa:GFP) medaka. Intriguingly, however, the strains showed opposite biases; that is, the mutant and transgenic medaka liked to mate with partners from their own strain, similar to becoming sexually isolated.    Conclusion  This study spotlighted  SLa  as a novel mate-choice gene in fish. In addition, these results are the first demonstration of a single gene that can pleiotropically and harmoniously change both secondary sexual characters and mating preferences. Although theoretical models have long suggested joint evolution of linked genes on a chromosome, a mutation on a gene-regulatory region (that is, switching on/off of a single gene) might be sufficient to trigger two 'runaway' processes in different directions to promote (sympatric) speciation.

Dual control by a single gene of secondary sexual characters and mating preferences in medaka