Theme: Recent work in speciation research by women authors

The Society for the Study of Evolution was established in 1943 by merging the National Research Council with the Society for the Study of Speciation (Evolution, 2021). Two leaders of this group, Mayr and Dobzhansky, set the agenda for decades of speciation research. Mayr’s Biological Species Concept (1942), see also (Dobzhansky, 1935) put the focus of speciation research squarely on the evolution of reproductive isolation, and his vehement arguments against the plausibility of sympatric speciation stoked decades of debates over whether or not reproductive isolation could evolve in the absence of geographical isolation. Likewise, Dobzhansky’s list of “isolating mechanisms” (1951) and model for the evolution of intrinsic postzygotic isolation (the eponymous Bateson-Dobzhansky-Muller model; [Dobzhansky, 1935]) laid the groundwork for comparative and genetic speciation studies. Several prominent contributions to our understanding of speciation were published during the following decades: Bush’s empirical study of sympatric host race formation in the apple maggot fly (1969), Felsenstein’s modeling work demonstrating how recombination halts progress toward speciation in sympatry (1981), and Coyne and Orr’s comparative analyses of the evolution of prezygotic and postzygotic isolation (Coyne & Orr, 1989, 1997). These papers, in turn, have had an enormous influence on modern speciation research, which continues to feature prominently in the pages of Evolution (Matute & Cooper, 2021). In light of this history, a special issue focused on speciation seems a natural choice to celebrate Evolution’s 75th anniversary. However, as is often the case when looking back on seminal research that has shaped a field, the papers that have garnered the most citations and influence come from a restricted pool that tended to exclude women. While it is certainly true that women historically had limited opportunities to participate in speciation research, “hidden figures” (sensu [Dung et al., 2019]) such as Margarete “Gretel” Simon Mayr [Trivers 2005]), and Dobzhansky’s long-time research assistant and coauthor, Olga Pavlovsky, almost certainly played important roles in the development of these ideas. And even despite limited opportunities for authorship, some of Evolution’s earliest papers on hybridization and introgression in nature were written by women, including Lulu Gaiser’s (1951) evidence for hybridization in Liatris, Barbara Calhoun’s study of introgression between Typha latifolia and T. angustifolia (Fassett & Calhoun, 1952), and Margot Forde’s study of hybridization between Quercus dumosa and the serpentine endemic Q. durata (Forde & Faris, 1962). Around this time, orchid breeder Helen Adams forged an academic-industrial partnership with Edgar Anderson to provide an overview of orchid hybrids for the readership of Evolution (Adams & Anderson, 1958). In addition to documenting natural and experimental hybridization, early contributions to Evolution by women also identified the mechanisms that isolate populations and how such isolation evolves over time. In the third volume of the journal, Theresa Clay (1949) outlined isolating mechanisms in ectoparasites and connected these barriers to the diversification process. In collaboration with their husbands, Edna Haskins documented patterns of sexual isolation between three species of poeciliid fishes (Haskins & Haskins, 1949), and Karen Grant exposed a case of mechanical isolation between a sympatric Salvia species pair (Grant & Grant, 1964). Meanwhile, more than 30 years before the publication of Coyne & Orr’s (1989) classic, Charlotte Avers published her work on experimental crosses between