Adaptations to sexual selection and sexual conflict: insights from experimental evolution and artificial selection

摘要

Artificial selection and experimental evolution document natural selection under controllednconditions. Collectively, these techniques are continuing to provide fresh and important insightsninto the genetic basis of evolutionary change, and are now being employed to investigate matingnbehaviour. Here, we focus on how selection techniques can reveal the genetic basis of post-nmating adaptations to sexual selection and sexual conflict. Alteration of the operational sex rationof adult Drosophila over just a few tens of generations can lead to altered ejaculate allocation patternsnand the evolution of resistance in females to the costly effects of elevated mating rates. We providennew data to show how male responses to the presence of rivals can evolve. For several traits, the waynin which males responded to rivals was opposite in lines selected for male-biased, as opposed tonfemale-biased, adult sex ratio. This shows that the manipulation of the relative intensity of intra-nand inter-sexual selection can lead to replicable and repeatable effects on mating systems, andnreveals the potential for significant contemporary evolutionary change. Such studies, with importantnsafeguards, have potential utility for understanding sexual selection and sexual conflict across manyntaxa. We discuss how artificial selection studies combined with genomics will continue to deepennour knowledge of the evolutionary principles first laid down by Darwin 150 years ago.