Dore, AA, Rostant, WG, Bretman, A orcid.org/0000-0002-4421-3337 et al. (1 more author) (2021) Plastic male mating behaviour evolves in response to the competitive environment. Evolution, 75 (1). pp. 105-115. ISSN 0014-3820
Abstract
Male reproductive phenotypes can evolve in response to the social and sexual environment. The expression of many such phenotypes may also be plastic within an individual's lifetime. For example, male Drosophila melanogaster show significantly extended mating duration following a period of exposure to conspecific male rivals. The costs and benefits of reproductive investment, and plasticity itself, can be shaped by the prevailing sociosexual environment and by resource availability. We investigated these ideas using experimental evolution lines of D. melanogaster evolving under three fixed sex ratios (high, medium, and low male‐male competition) on either rich or poor adult diets. We found that males evolving in high‐competition environments evolved longer mating durations overall. In addition, these males expressed a novel type of plastic behavioral response following exposure to rival males: they both significantly reduced and showed altered courtship delivery, and exhibited significantly longer mating latencies. Plasticity in male mating duration in response to rivals was maintained in all of the lines, suggesting that the costs of plasticity were minimal. None of the evolutionary responses tested were consistently affected by dietary resource regimes. Collectively, the results show that fixed behavioral changes and new augmentations to the repertoire of reproductive behaviors can evolve rapidly.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 The Authors. Evolution published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Society for the Study of Evolution. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Courtship; experimental evolution; mating duration; sex ratio; sexual selection |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Biology (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Leverhulme Trust RPG-2016-184 NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/R000891/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 09 Sep 2020 13:42 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 22:24 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/evo.14089 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:165246 |