Premium
Strong sexual selection in males against a mutation load that reduces offspring production in seed beetles
Author(s) -
Grieshop K.,
Stångberg J.,
MartinossiAllibert I.,
Arnqvist G.,
Berger D.
Publication year - 2016
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/jeb.12862
Subject(s) - biology , sexual selection , genetic load , reproduction , population , selection (genetic algorithm) , sexual reproduction , offspring , genetics , reproductive success , callosobruchus maculatus , allele , zoology , evolutionary biology , demography , gene , inbreeding , pregnancy , botany , pest analysis , artificial intelligence , sociology , computer science
Abstract 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 F 0 generation and measured mutational effects (relative to nonirradiated controls) on an estimate of population productivity in the F 1 and effects on sex‐specific competitive lifetime reproductive success ( LRS ) in the F 2 . Regardless of whether mutations were induced via F 0 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.