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Female dispersion and sex ratios interact in the evolution of mating behavior: a computational model.

ABSTRACT: The evolution of mating strategies is not well understood. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the variation in mating strategies, with varying levels of support. Specifically, female dispersion, adult sex ratio and mate guarding have been proposed as drivers of the evolution of monogamous strategies. In this study, we used an agent-based model (ABM) to examine how different mating behaviors evolve in a population under different conditions related to these putative drivers, looking to understand the interaction between them. We found an interaction among different factors in the evolution of social monogamy, and their impact is in this order: adult sex ratio (ASR), female dispersion and extra-pair copulation. Thus, when the adult sex ratio is male-biased, monogamous strategies are strongly favored. However, this is only the case if mate guarding is fully efficient, i.e., if there is no extra-pair copulation. On the other hand, in scenarios where the population is female-biased, or mate guarding is not efficient, we find that polygamous strategies are favored but proportionally to the dispersion of females. These results confirm previous findings regarding mate guarding and sex ratios, while also showing how female dispersion enters the dynamics.

SUBMITTER: Gomes BV

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5802766 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Female dispersion and sex ratios interact in the evolution of mating behavior: a computational model.

Gomes B V BV Guimarães D M DM Szczupak D D Neves K K

Scientific reports 20180206 1

The evolution of mating strategies is not well understood. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the variation in mating strategies, with varying levels of support. Specifically, female dispersion, adult sex ratio and mate guarding have been proposed as drivers of the evolution of monogamous strategies. In this study, we used an agent-based model (ABM) to examine how different mating behaviors evolve in a population under different conditions related to these putative drivers, looking ...[more]

PMID: 29410464

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Project description:Sexual selection and sexual conflict play central roles in driving the evolution of male and female traits. Experimental evolution provides a powerful approach to study the operation of these forces under controlled environmental and demographic conditions, thereby allowing direct comparisons of evolutionary trajectories under different treatments such as mating systems. Despite the rapid progress of experimental and statistical techniques that support experimental evolution studies, we still lack clear theoretical predictions on the effects of different mating systems beyond what intuition suggests. For example, polygamy (several males and females in a mating group) and polyandry (one single female and multiple males in a mating group) have each been used as treatments that elevate sexual selection on males and sexual conflict relative to monogamy. However, polygamy and polyandry manipulations sometimes produce different evolutionary outcomes, and the precise reasons why remain elusive. In addition, the softness of selection (i.e., scale of competition within each sex) is known to affect trait evolution, and is an important factor to consider in experimental design. To date, no model has specifically investigated how the softness of selection interacts with different mating systems. Here, we try to fill these gaps by generating clear and readily testable predictions. Our set of models were designed to capture the most important life cycle events in typical experimental evolution studies, and we use simulated changes of sex-specific gene expression profiles (i.e., feminization or masculinization) to quantify trait evolution under different selection schemes. We show that interactions between the softness of selection and the mating system can produce results that have been identified as counterintuitive in previous empirical work such as polyandry producing stronger feminization than monogamy. We conclude by encouraging a stronger integration of modelling in future experimental evolution studies and pointing out remaining knowledge gaps for future theoretical work.

Dataset Information

Female dispersion and sex ratios interact in the evolution of mating behavior: a computational model.

Publications

Female dispersion and sex ratios interact in the evolution of mating behavior: a computational model.

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