Dataset Information

Muscle mass drives cost in sexually selected arthropod weapons.

ABSTRACT: Sexually selected weapons often function as honest signals of fighting ability. If poor-quality individuals produce high-quality weapons, then receivers should focus on other, more reliable signals. Cost is one way to maintain signal integrity. The costs of weapons tend to increase with relative weapon size, and thereby restrict large weapons to high-quality individuals who can produce and maintain them. Weapon cost, however, appears to be unpredictably variable both within and across taxa, and the mechanisms underlying this variation remain unclear. We suggest variation in weapon cost may result from variation in weapon composition-specifically, differences in the amount of muscle mass directly associated with the weapon. We test this idea by measuring the metabolic cost of sexually selected weapons in seven arthropod species and relating these measures to weapon muscle mass. We show that individuals with relatively large weapon muscles have disproportionately high resting metabolic rates and provide evidence that this trend is driven by weapon muscle mass. Overall, our results suggest that variation in weapon cost can be partially explained by variation in weapon morphology and that the integrity of weapon signals may be maintained by increased metabolic cost in species with relatively high weapon muscle mass.

SUBMITTER: O'Brien DM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6599981 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Muscle mass drives cost in sexually selected arthropod weapons.

O'Brien Devin M DM Boisseau Romain P RP Duell Meghan M McCullough Erin E Powell Erin C EC Somjee Ummat U Solie Sarah S Hickey Anthony J AJ Holwell Gregory I GI Painting Christina J CJ Emlen Douglas J DJ

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20190626 1905

Sexually selected weapons often function as honest signals of fighting ability. If poor-quality individuals produce high-quality weapons, then receivers should focus on other, more reliable signals. Cost is one way to maintain signal integrity. The costs of weapons tend to increase with relative weapon size, and thereby restrict large weapons to high-quality individuals who can produce and maintain them. Weapon cost, however, appears to be unpredictably variable both within and across taxa, and ...[more]

PMID: 31238851

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Project description:Transcript abundance was measured in whole-body virgin male Drosophila serrata from 41 inbred lines that had diverged through 27 generations of mutation accumulation that were sexually selected Sexual selection is predicted to have widespread effects on the genetic variation generated by new mutations as a consequence of the genic capture of condition by male sexual traits. We manipulated the opportunity for sexual selection on males during 27 generations of mutation accumulation in inbred lines of Drosophila serrata, and used a microarray platform to investigate the effect of sexual selection on the expression of 2685 genes, representing a broad coverage of biological function. Sexual selection had little effect on mean gene expression levels, with only 4 genes diverging significantly at a false discovery rate of 5% . In contrast, sexual selection impacted on both the magnitude and nature of mutational variance accumulating in these genes. The magnitude of mutational variance increased under sexual selection by an average of 29%. Mutational variance was less commonly generated by extreme phenotypes less commonly under sexual selection. Furthermore, analysis of random sets of five genes revealed that the mutational variance that accumulated under sexual selection was less pleiotropic in nature than that found in the absence of sexual selection. The generation of greater mutational variance without a general concomitant change in mean expression under sexual selection suggested that gene expression traits were be under apparent rather than direct sexual selection. We discuss two main explanations for the broad-based increase in mutational variance under sexual selection that both require extensive pleiotropy between traits affecting male mating success, standard metric traits represented here by gene expression traits, and general fitness. We measured gene expression of male Drosophila serrata from 41 mutation accumulation lines (whole-body) that were sexually selected. Data from two replicates for each line are presented.

Dataset Information

Muscle mass drives cost in sexually selected arthropod weapons.

Publications

Muscle mass drives cost in sexually selected arthropod weapons.

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