Secondary reversion to sexual monomorphism associated with tissue-specific loss of doublesex expression

Abstract

Animal evolution is characterized by frequent turnover of sexually dimorphic traits – new sex- specific characters are gained, and some ancestral sex-specific characters are lost, in many lineages. In insects, sexual differentiation is predominantly cell-autonomous and depends on the expression of the doublesex (dsx) transcription factor. In most cases, cells that transcribe dsx have the potential to undergo sex-specific differentiation, while those that lack dsx expression do not. Consistent with this mode of development, comparative research has shown that the origin of new sex-specific traits can be associated with the origin of new spatial domains of dsx expression. In this report, we examine the opposite situation – a secondary loss of the sex comb, a male-specific grasping structure that develops on the front legs of some drosophilid species. We show that, while the origin of the sex comb is linked to an evolutionary gain of dsx expression in the leg, sex comb loss in a newly identified species of Lordiphosa (Drosophilidae) is associated with a secondary loss of dsx expression. We discuss how the developmental control of sexual dimorphism affects the mechanisms by which sex-specific traits can evolve.