Department of Biology, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
Living Earth Collaborative, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
Ecol Lett. 2022 Sep;25(9):1919-1936. doi: 10.1111/ele.14072. Epub 2022 Jul 13.
Thermal ecology and mate competition are both pervasive features of ecological adaptation. A surge of recent work has uncovered the diversity of ways in which temperature affects mating interactions and sexual selection. However, the potential for thermal biology and reproductive ecology to evolve together as organisms adapt to their thermal environment has been underappreciated. Here, we develop a series of hypotheses regarding (1) not only how thermal ecology affects mating system dynamics, but also how mating dynamics can generate selection on thermal traits; and (2) how the thermal consequences of mate competition favour the reciprocal co-adaptation of thermal biology and sexual traits. We discuss our hypotheses in the context of both pre-copulatory and post-copulatory processes. We also call for future work integrating experimental and phylogenetic comparative approaches to understand evolutionary feedbacks between thermal ecology and sexual selection. Overall, studying reciprocal feedbacks between thermal ecology and sexual selection may be necessary to understand how organisms have adapted to the environments of the past and could persist in the environments of the future.
热生态学和配偶竞争都是生态适应的普遍特征。最近的大量研究揭示了温度影响交配相互作用和性选择的多样性方式。然而，生物适应其热环境时，热生物学和生殖生态学可能一起进化的潜力一直被低估。在这里，我们提出了一系列关于以下方面的假设：（1）不仅热生态学如何影响交配系统动态，而且交配动态如何对热特征产生选择；以及（2）配偶竞争的热后果如何有利于热生物学和性特征的相互适应。我们在预热和后交配过程的背景下讨论了我们的假设。我们还呼吁未来的工作整合实验和系统发育比较方法，以了解热生态学和性选择之间的进化反馈。总的来说，研究热生态学和性选择之间的相互反馈可能对于理解生物如何适应过去的环境以及如何在未来的环境中生存是必要的。
