Understanding how organisms adapt to environmental changes is a major question in evolution and ecology. In particular, the role of ancestral variation in rapid adaptation remains unclear because its trace on genetic variation, known as soft selective sweep, is often hardly recognizable from genome-wide selection scans. Here, we investigate the evolution of chemosensory genes in Drosophila yakuba mayottensis, a specialist subspecies on toxic noni (Morinda citrifolia) fruits on the island of Mayotte. We combine population genomics analyses and behavioral assays to evaluate the level of divergence in chemosensory genes and perception of noni chemicals between specialist and generalist subspecies of D. yakuba. We identify a signal of soft selective sweep on a handful of genes, with the most diverging ones involving a cluster of gustatory receptors expressed in bitter-sensing neurons. Our results highlight the potential role of ancestral genetic variation in promoting host plant specialization in herbivorous insects and identify a number of candidate genes underlying behavioral adaptation.
Keywords: feeding behavior; gene family evolution; genome-wide selection scan; insect-plant interactions; standing genetic variation.