Strong sexual selection in males against a mutation load that reduces offspring production in seed beetles

Theory predicts that sexual reproduction can increase population viability relative to asexual reproduction by allowing sexual selection in males to remove deleterious mutations from the population without large demographic costs. This requires that selection acts more strongly in males than females...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of evolutionary biology 2016-06, Vol.29 (6), p.1201-1210
Main Authors: Grieshop, K., Stångberg, J., Martinossi‐Allibert, I., Arnqvist, G., Berger, D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
adaptation
Animal reproduction
Animals
Callosobruchus maculatus
Coleoptera
Evolutionary biology
Female
genetic correlation
Insects
intralocus sexual conflict
Male
Mutation
pleiotropy
population viability
Reproduction
Selection, Genetic
sexual antagonism
Sexual Behavior, Animal
sexual selection
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Summary:Theory predicts that sexual reproduction can increase population viability relative to asexual reproduction by allowing sexual selection in males to remove deleterious mutations from the population without large demographic costs. This requires that selection acts more strongly in males than females and that mutations affecting male reproductive success have pleiotropic effects on population productivity, but empirical support for these assumptions is mixed. We used the seed beetle Callosobruchus maculatus to implement a three‐generation breeding design where we induced mutations via ionizing radiation (IR) in the F0 generation and measured mutational effects (relative to nonirradiated controls) on an estimate of population productivity in the F1 and effects on sex‐specific competitive lifetime reproductive success (LRS) in the F2. Regardless of whether mutations were induced via F0 males or females, they had strong negative effects on male LRS, but a nonsignificant influence on female LRS, suggesting that selection is more efficient in removing deleterious alleles in males. Moreover, mutations had seemingly shared effects on population productivity and competitive LRS in both sexes. Thus, our results lend support to the hypothesis that strong sexual selection on males can act to remove the mutation load on population viability, thereby offering a benefit to sexual reproduction.
ISSN:1010-061X
1420-9101
1420-9101
DOI:10.1111/jeb.12862