Department of Biology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4K1.
Biol Lett. 2018 Oct 17;14(10):20180474. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2018.0474.
In , males engage in both extensive pre- and post-copulatory competition for the opportunity to mate with females and subsequently sire offspring. The selection pressure for increased male reproductive success has resulted in the evolution of a wide diversity of sexual traits. However, despite strong selection, individuals often exhibit considerable phenotypic variation in the expression of these traits, and it is unclear if any of this variation is owing to underlying genetic trade-offs. Here, using hemiclonal flies, we examine how male reproductive success covaries with their ability to induce long-term stimulation of oogenesis and oviposition in their mates, and how this relationship may change over time. We found that males from hemiclone lines with phenotypes that were more successful in a short-term reproductive 'scramble' environment were less effective at stimulating long-term fecundity in females. Furthermore, we observed that males from hemiclone lines which showed the most improvement over a longer reproductive interaction period also tended to stimulate higher long-term fecundity in females. Together, these results indicate the presence of genetic trade-offs between different male reproductive traits and offer insights into the maintenance of their variation.
在 ，雄性为了与雌性交配并随后生育后代的机会而进行广泛的交配前和交配后竞争。为了提高雄性生殖成功的选择压力导致了多种多样的性特征的进化。然而，尽管存在强烈的选择，个体在这些特征的表达上通常表现出相当大的表型变异，并且不清楚这种变异是否归因于潜在的遗传权衡。在这里，我们使用半克隆蝇，研究了雄性生殖成功与它们诱导雌性长期产卵和排卵的能力如何相关，以及这种关系如何随时间变化。我们发现，在短期生殖“混战”环境中表现出更高成功率的半克隆系的雄性，在刺激雌性长期生育力方面的效果较差。此外，我们观察到，在较长的生殖相互作用期间表现出最大改进的半克隆系的雄性，也倾向于刺激雌性的长期生育力更高。总之，这些结果表明不同雄性生殖特征之间存在遗传权衡，并为其变异的维持提供了见解。
