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Concerted evolution of male and female display traits in the European corn borer, Ostrinia nubilalis

BACKGROUND: Sexual reproduction entails the encounter of the sexes and the multiplicity of rituals is parallel to the diversity of mating systems. Evolutionary mechanisms such as sexual selection and sexual conflict have led to the elaboration of traits to gain attention and favours from potential p...

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Autores principales: Lassance, Jean-Marc, Löfstedt, Christer
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2671483/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19257880
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7007-7-10
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author Lassance, Jean-Marc
Löfstedt, Christer
author_facet Lassance, Jean-Marc
Löfstedt, Christer
author_sort Lassance, Jean-Marc
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Sexual reproduction entails the encounter of the sexes and the multiplicity of rituals is parallel to the diversity of mating systems. Evolutionary mechanisms such as sexual selection and sexual conflict have led to the elaboration of traits to gain attention and favours from potential partners. A paradox exists about how coordinated systems can evolve and diverge when there would seem to be a stabilising selection acting. Moth display traits – pheromones – constitute an advantageous model with which to address questions about the evolution of mating systems in animals. Both males and females can possess pheromones that are involved either in close- or long-range communication. Female and male pheromones appear to have different origins and to be under different evolutionary constraints, thus they might be envisioned as independently evolving traits. We conducted laboratory experiments to explore the role of scents released during courtship by males of the European corn borer, Ostrinia nubilalis. RESULTS: Information provided by the male pheromone appears critical for female acceptance. The composition of this male pheromone varies in an age-dependent manner and females show mating preference towards older males in choice experiments. Furthermore, male signals may allow species discrimination and reinforce reproductive isolation. Finally, we found evidence for a genetic correlation between male and female signals, the evolution of which is best explained by the constraints and opportunities resulting from the sharing of gene products. CONCLUSION: In this study we used an integrative approach to characterise the male sex pheromone in a moth. Interestingly, the male chemical signal is analogous to the female signal in that structurally similar compounds are being used by both sexes. Hence, in systems where both sexes possess display traits, the pleiotropy of genes generating the traits could influence the evolutionary trajectories of sexual signals and lead to their divergence, with speciation being the ultimate result.
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spelling pubmed-26714832009-04-22 Concerted evolution of male and female display traits in the European corn borer, Ostrinia nubilalis Lassance, Jean-Marc Löfstedt, Christer BMC Biol Research Article BACKGROUND: Sexual reproduction entails the encounter of the sexes and the multiplicity of rituals is parallel to the diversity of mating systems. Evolutionary mechanisms such as sexual selection and sexual conflict have led to the elaboration of traits to gain attention and favours from potential partners. A paradox exists about how coordinated systems can evolve and diverge when there would seem to be a stabilising selection acting. Moth display traits – pheromones – constitute an advantageous model with which to address questions about the evolution of mating systems in animals. Both males and females can possess pheromones that are involved either in close- or long-range communication. Female and male pheromones appear to have different origins and to be under different evolutionary constraints, thus they might be envisioned as independently evolving traits. We conducted laboratory experiments to explore the role of scents released during courtship by males of the European corn borer, Ostrinia nubilalis. RESULTS: Information provided by the male pheromone appears critical for female acceptance. The composition of this male pheromone varies in an age-dependent manner and females show mating preference towards older males in choice experiments. Furthermore, male signals may allow species discrimination and reinforce reproductive isolation. Finally, we found evidence for a genetic correlation between male and female signals, the evolution of which is best explained by the constraints and opportunities resulting from the sharing of gene products. CONCLUSION: In this study we used an integrative approach to characterise the male sex pheromone in a moth. Interestingly, the male chemical signal is analogous to the female signal in that structurally similar compounds are being used by both sexes. Hence, in systems where both sexes possess display traits, the pleiotropy of genes generating the traits could influence the evolutionary trajectories of sexual signals and lead to their divergence, with speciation being the ultimate result. BioMed Central 2009-03-03 /pmc/articles/PMC2671483/ /pubmed/19257880 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7007-7-10 Text en Copyright © 2009 Lassance and Löfstedt; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Lassance, Jean-Marc
Löfstedt, Christer
Concerted evolution of male and female display traits in the European corn borer, Ostrinia nubilalis
title Concerted evolution of male and female display traits in the European corn borer, Ostrinia nubilalis
title_full Concerted evolution of male and female display traits in the European corn borer, Ostrinia nubilalis
title_fullStr Concerted evolution of male and female display traits in the European corn borer, Ostrinia nubilalis
title_full_unstemmed Concerted evolution of male and female display traits in the European corn borer, Ostrinia nubilalis
title_short Concerted evolution of male and female display traits in the European corn borer, Ostrinia nubilalis
title_sort concerted evolution of male and female display traits in the european corn borer, ostrinia nubilalis
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2671483/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19257880
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7007-7-10
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