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Inbreeding depression in the competitive fertilization success of male crickets
Author(s) -
SIMMONS L. W.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of evolutionary biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.289
H-Index - 128
eISSN - 1420-9101
pISSN - 1010-061X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2010.02179.x
Subject(s) - inbreeding depression , biology , inbreeding , sexual selection , outbreeding depression , mating , human fertilization , sperm competition , zoology , selection (genetic algorithm) , stabilizing selection , mate choice , evolutionary biology , demography , genetic variation , genetics , population , artificial intelligence , sociology , computer science , gene
Mating between close relatives generally results in offspring of decreased fitness. Inbreeding depression is generally greater for life‐history traits than for morphological traits, and recent studies of traits subject to sexual selection suggest that these may suffer the greatest inbreeding depression. Sexual selection continues after mating in the form of sperm competition and cryptic female choice, imposing strong selection on male competitive fertilization success. Here, I examine the effects of a single generation of full‐sib mating on competitive fertilization success in a cricket, Teleogryllus oceanicus . The estimated coefficient of inbreeding depression in competitive fertilization success was 0.37, higher than that for other life‐history and morphological traits. Such intense inbreeding depression coupled with little or no additive genetic variance for this trait is consistent with strong directional selection on male competitive fertilization success generating high levels of dominance variance, and provides an adaptive explanation for the evolution of inbreeding avoidance found in this species.