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Assessing putative interlocus sexual conflict in Drosophila melanogaster using experimental evolution.

ABSTRACT: The theoretical foundation of sexually antagonistic coevolution is that females suffer a net fitness cost through their interactions with males. The empirical prediction is that direct costs to female lifetime fecundity will exceed indirect benefits despite a possible increase in the genetic quality of offspring. Although direct costs of males have been repeatedly shown, to date no study has comprehensively tested whether females are compensated for this direct harm through indirect benefits. Here we use experimental evolution to show that a mutation giving Drosophila melanogaster females nearly complete resistance to the direct costs of male courtship and remating, but which also excluded almost all indirect benefits, is strongly favoured by selection. We estimated the selection coefficient favouring the resistance allele to be +20%. These results demonstrate that any indirect benefits that females accrued were not sufficient to counter-balance the direct costs of males, and reinforce a large body of past studies by verifying interlocus sexual conflict in this model system.

SUBMITTER: Stewart AD

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1559894 | biostudies-other | 2005 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Assessing putative interlocus sexual conflict in Drosophila melanogaster using experimental evolution.

Stewart Andrew D AD Morrow Edward H EH Rice William R WR

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20051001 1576

The theoretical foundation of sexually antagonistic coevolution is that females suffer a net fitness cost through their interactions with males. The empirical prediction is that direct costs to female lifetime fecundity will exceed indirect benefits despite a possible increase in the genetic quality of offspring. Although direct costs of males have been repeatedly shown, to date no study has comprehensively tested whether females are compensated for this direct harm through indirect benefits. He ...[more]

PMID: 16191613

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Project description:BACKGROUND:The number of partners that individuals mate with over their lifetime is a defining feature of mating systems, and variation in mate number is thought to be a major driver of sexual evolution. Although previous research has investigated the evolutionary consequences of reductions in the number of mates, we know little about the costs and benefits of increased numbers of mates. Here, we use a genetic manipulation of mating frequency in Drosophila melanogaster to create a novel, highly promiscuous mating system. We generated D. melanogaster populations in which flies were deficient for the sex peptide receptor (SPR) gene - resulting in SPR- females that mated more frequently - and genetically-matched control populations, and allowed them to evolve for 55 generations. At several time-points during this experimental evolution, we assayed behavioural, morphological and transcriptional reproductive phenotypes expected to evolve in response to increased population mating frequencies. RESULTS:We found that males from the high mating frequency SPR- populations evolved decreased ability to inhibit the receptivity of their mates and decreased copulation duration, in line with predictions of decreased per-mating investment with increased sperm competition. Unexpectedly, SPR- population males also evolved weakly increased sex peptide (SP) gene expression. Males from SPR- populations initially (i.e., before experimental evolution) exhibited more frequent courtship and faster time until mating relative to controls, but over evolutionary time these differences diminished or reversed. CONCLUSIONS:In response to experimentally increased mating frequency, SPR- males evolved behavioural responses consistent with decreased male post-copulatory investment at each mating and decreased overall pre-copulatory performance. The trend towards increased SP gene expression might plausibly relate to functional differences in the two domains of the SP protein. Our study highlights the utility of genetic manipulations of animal social and sexual environments coupled with experimental evolution.

Dataset Information

Assessing putative interlocus sexual conflict in Drosophila melanogaster using experimental evolution.

Publications

Assessing putative interlocus sexual conflict in Drosophila melanogaster using experimental evolution.

Similar Datasets

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