Male harm offsets the demographic benefits of good genes.

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License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Serval ID
serval:BIB_C86A1E67E80F
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Male harm offsets the demographic benefits of good genes.
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Author(s)
Flintham E.O., Savolainen V., Mullon C.
ISSN
1091-6490 (Electronic)
ISSN-L
0027-8424
Publication state
Published
Issued date
07/03/2023
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
120
Number
10
Pages
e2211668120
Language
english
Notes
Publication types: Journal Article
Publication Status: ppublish
Abstract
Sexual conflict can arise when males evolve traits that improve their mating success but in doing so harm females. By reducing female fitness, male harm can diminish offspring production in a population and even drive extinction. Current theory on harm is based on the assumption that an individual's phenotype is solely determined by its genotype. But the expression of most sexually selected traits is also influenced by variation in biological condition (condition-dependent expression), such that individuals in better condition can express more extreme phenotypes. Here, we developed demographically explicit models of sexual conflict evolution where individuals vary in their condition. Because condition-dependent expression readily evolves for traits underlying sexual conflict, we show that conflict is more intense in populations where individuals are in better condition. Such intensified conflict reduces mean fitness and can thus generate a negative association between condition and population size. The impact of condition on demography is especially likely to be detrimental when the genetic basis of condition coevolves with sexual conflict. This occurs because sexual selection favors alleles that improve condition (the so-called good genes effect), producing feedback between condition and sexual conflict that drives the evolution of intense male harm. Our results indicate that in presence of male harm, the good genes effect in fact easily becomes detrimental to populations.
Keywords
Female, Male, Animals, Alleles, Genotype, Reproduction, Cell Communication, Population Density, good genes, sexual conflict, sexual selection
Pubmed
Open Access
Yes
Create date
13/03/2023 12:51
Last modification date
25/01/2024 8:44
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