Conflict between direct and indirect benefits of female choice in desertDrosophila

Abstract

Identifying the factors that contribute to the adaptive significance of mating preferences is one major goal of evolutionary research and is largely unresolved. Both direct and indirect benefits can contribute to mate choice evolution. Failure to consider the interaction between individual consequences of mate choice may obscure the opposing effects of individual costs and benefits. We investigate direct and indirect fitness effects of female choice in a desert fly (Drosophila mojavensis), a species where mating confers resistance to desiccation stress. Females prefer males that provide a direct benefit: greater resistance to desiccation stress. Mating preferences also appear to have indirect consequences: daughters of preferred males have lower reproductive success than daughters of unpreferred males, although additional experimentation will be needed to determine if the indirect consequences of female preferences actually arise from 'sexually antagonistic' variation. Nevertheless, the results are intriguing and are consistent with the hypothesis that an interaction between direct and indirect benefits maintains sexually antagonistic variation in these desert flies: increased desiccation resistance conferred by mating might offset the cost of producing low-fecundity daughters.

Attractive males do not sire superior daughters

“…Therefore it seems that good genes effects are not manifest in this population. These results contrast with studies showing fathers' reproductive success negatively affecting their daughters' fitness (Fedorka and Mousseau 2004;Pischedda and Chippindale 2006;Foerster et al 2007;O'Neal et al 2007), but are consistent with others reporting a neutral effect of father's reproductive success on their daughters' fitness alongside benefits via sons' fitness (mating success) (Norris 1993;Jones et al 1998;Tomkins and Simmons 1999;Rundle et al 2007). Although we did not directly measure sons' fitness here, our previous investigations (see above) find attractive males sire attractive sons, and together Fig.…”

“…A little-explored theory by Seger and Trivers (1986) also predicts that females benefit specifically via their daughters' fitness, even at a cost to sons' fitness. However, there is a growing body of evidence that, contrary to this theory, find negative sire-daughter fitness associations (Rice 1984;Norris 1993;Fedorka and Mousseau 2004;Pischedda and Chippindale 2006;Foerster et al 2007;O'Neal et al 2007), or that fail to document the general increases in quality predicted by good genes sexual selection (e.g. Martin et al 2004).…”

Cross-generational effects of male reproductive success and offspring immunocompetence inDrosophila melanogaster

“…Thus, depending on the magnitude of the selective pressures acting on males and females, different levels (and dimorphisms) of investment into immunocompetence can evolve (see Vincent and Gwynne 2014). Furthermore, our study complements previous studies (e.g., Fedorka and Mousseau 2004;Oneal et al 2007) that have reported distinct sex-specific benefits/costs associated with female mating biases, by highlighting an important fitness-related trait (immunocompetence) that may be associated with differences in offspring competitive success. Integrating information on sex-specific fitness-maximizing strategies, pathogenic risks, developmental costs, and resource availabilities in both males and females should lead to better understanding inter-and intra-specific diversity in immune and reproductive traits.…”

Female extrapair mate choice in a cooperative breeder: trading sex for help and increasing offspring heterozygosity

“…Since it is not yet known in birds if, and how, females actively assess the heterozygosity (or genetic similarity) of males or if some post-copulatory process such as sperm competition, cryptic female choice, interactions between sperm and ova or differential embryo survival, is acting to increase the fitness of more heterozygous males ( Jennions & Petrie 2000;Marshall et al 2003;Tarvin et al 2005), additional work is needed to understand the mechanisms underlying female extrapair mate choice for indirect genetic benefits. Future studies examining patterns of extrapair paternity will also benefit from focusing on sexual conflict and the evolutionary interactions between male and females over mating ( Westneat & Stewart 2003;Griffith 2007), as well as the potential interactions between selection for direct and indirect benefits (Oneal et al 2007). Females who copulated with within-group extrapair mates had fewer surviving offspring (i.e.…”