Abnormalities of meioses in male reciprocal hybrids between the Hiroshima and Ichinoseki populations ofRana japonica

In order to elucidate cytogenetically the cause of male sterility in intraspecific hybrids ofRana japonica, the behavior of chromosomes in the first meiosis was observed in spermatocytes from male reciprocal hybrids between two populations from Hiroshima and Ichinoseki. In the parental Hiroshima and Ichioseki populations, 2530 (96.7%) meiotic spreads had 13 bivalents and 78 (3.0%) contained 12 bivalents and two univalents, whereas in reciprocal hybrids only 337 (7.0%) contained 13 bivalents and the other 4445 (93.0%) had 2–26 univalents. A total of 31647 (93.4%) bivalents was ring-shaped and the other 2234 (6.6%) were rod-shaped in both parental populations, whereas in reciprocal hybrids 26352 (57.1%) and 19819 (42.9%) bivalents were ring- and rod-shaped, respectively. These results show that meiotic chromosomes of reciprocal hybrids are characterized by a remarkable increase in univalents and rod-shaped bivalents.