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Transcriptome‐wide effects of sexual selection on the fate of new mutations
Author(s) -
Collet Julie M.,
Blows Mark W.,
McGuigan Katrina
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
evolution
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.84
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1558-5646
pISSN - 0014-3820
DOI - 10.1111/evo.12778
Subject(s) - biology , sexual selection , genetics , selection (genetic algorithm) , gene , genetic variation , transcriptome , phenotype , mating , evolutionary biology , allele , gene expression , artificial intelligence , computer science
Sexual selection on males is predicted to have widespread effects on genetic variation as a consequence of the pleiotropic allelic effects on sexual and nonsexual traits. We manipulated the opportunity for sexual selection on males during 27 generations of mutation accumulation in inbred lines of Drosophila serrata , and used a microarray platform to investigate the effect of sexual selection on the expression of 2689 genes. While gene expression signal was, on average, higher in the absence of sexual selection, this difference was small (0.1%). In contrast, sexual selection impacted substantially on the mutational variance in gene expression. Over all genes, mutational variance in gene expression was, on average, 42% higher when sexual selection operated than when it was absent. Our results indicate that sexual selection on males can generate widespread effects across the genome. An increase in mutational variance without a corresponding change in mean suggested that most expression traits were unlikely to be under direct sexual selection. Instead, the mutational variance in gene expression traits is consistent with divergence generated by widespread pleiotropic associations with traits affecting male mating success.