A supergene in seaweed flies modulates male traits and female perception

Supergenes, tightly linked sets of alleles, offer some of the most spectacular examples of polymorphism persisting under long-term balancing selection. However, we still do not understand their evolution and persistence, especially in the face of accumulation of deleterious elements. Here, we show that an overdominant supergene in seaweed flies, Coelopa frigida, modulates male traits, potentially facilitating disassortative mating and promoting intraspecific polymorphism. Across two continents, the Cf-Inv(1) supergene strongly affected the composition of male cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) but only weakly affected CHC composition in females. Using gas chromatography–electroantennographic detection, we show that females can sense male CHCs and that there may be differential perception between genotypes. Combining our phenotypic results with RNA-seq data, we show that candidate genes for CHC biosynthesis primarily show differential expression for Cf-Inv(1) in males but not females. Conversely, candidate genes for odorant detection were differentially expressed in both sexes but showed high levels of divergence between supergene haplotypes. We suggest that the reduced recombination between supergene haplotypes may have led to rapid divergence in mate preferences as well as increasing linkage between male traits, and overdominant loci. Together this probably helped to maintain the polymorphism despite deleterious effects in homozygotes.