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Direct selection on male attractiveness and female preference fails to produce a response

BACKGROUND: Theoretical studies suggest that direct and indirect selection have the potential to cause substantial evolutionary change in female mate choice. Similarly, sexual selection is considered a strong force in the evolution of male attractiveness and the exaggeration of secondary sexual trai...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Hall, Matthew, Lindholm, Anna K, Brooks, Robert
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2004
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC319700/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14720309
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-4-1
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author Hall, Matthew
Lindholm, Anna K
Brooks, Robert
author_facet Hall, Matthew
Lindholm, Anna K
Brooks, Robert
author_sort Hall, Matthew
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Theoretical studies suggest that direct and indirect selection have the potential to cause substantial evolutionary change in female mate choice. Similarly, sexual selection is considered a strong force in the evolution of male attractiveness and the exaggeration of secondary sexual traits. Few studies have, however, directly tested how female mate choice and male attractiveness respond to selection. Here we report the results of a selection experiment in which we selected directly on female mating preference for attractive males and, independently, on male attractiveness in the guppy, Poecilia reticulata. We measured the direct and correlated responses of female mate choice and male attractiveness to selection and the correlated responses of male ornamental traits, female fecundity and adult male and female survival. RESULTS: Surprisingly, neither female mate choice nor male attractiveness responded significantly to direct or to indirect selection. Fecundity did differ significantly among lines in a way that suggests a possible sexually-antagonistic cost to male attractiveness. CONCLUSIONS: The opportunity for evolutionary change in female mate choice and male attractiveness may be much smaller than predicted by current theory, and may thus have important consequences for how we understand the evolution of female mate choice and male attractiveness. We discuss a number of factors that may have constrained the response of female choice and male attractiveness to selection, including low heritabilities, low levels of genetic (co)variation in the multivariate direction of selection, sexually-antagonistic constraint on sexual selection and the "environmental covariance hypothesis".
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spelling pubmed-3197002004-01-27 Direct selection on male attractiveness and female preference fails to produce a response Hall, Matthew Lindholm, Anna K Brooks, Robert BMC Evol Biol Research Article BACKGROUND: Theoretical studies suggest that direct and indirect selection have the potential to cause substantial evolutionary change in female mate choice. Similarly, sexual selection is considered a strong force in the evolution of male attractiveness and the exaggeration of secondary sexual traits. Few studies have, however, directly tested how female mate choice and male attractiveness respond to selection. Here we report the results of a selection experiment in which we selected directly on female mating preference for attractive males and, independently, on male attractiveness in the guppy, Poecilia reticulata. We measured the direct and correlated responses of female mate choice and male attractiveness to selection and the correlated responses of male ornamental traits, female fecundity and adult male and female survival. RESULTS: Surprisingly, neither female mate choice nor male attractiveness responded significantly to direct or to indirect selection. Fecundity did differ significantly among lines in a way that suggests a possible sexually-antagonistic cost to male attractiveness. CONCLUSIONS: The opportunity for evolutionary change in female mate choice and male attractiveness may be much smaller than predicted by current theory, and may thus have important consequences for how we understand the evolution of female mate choice and male attractiveness. We discuss a number of factors that may have constrained the response of female choice and male attractiveness to selection, including low heritabilities, low levels of genetic (co)variation in the multivariate direction of selection, sexually-antagonistic constraint on sexual selection and the "environmental covariance hypothesis". BioMed Central 2004-01-14 /pmc/articles/PMC319700/ /pubmed/14720309 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-4-1 Text en Copyright © 2004 Hall et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original URL.
spellingShingle Research Article
Hall, Matthew
Lindholm, Anna K
Brooks, Robert
Direct selection on male attractiveness and female preference fails to produce a response
title Direct selection on male attractiveness and female preference fails to produce a response
title_full Direct selection on male attractiveness and female preference fails to produce a response
title_fullStr Direct selection on male attractiveness and female preference fails to produce a response
title_full_unstemmed Direct selection on male attractiveness and female preference fails to produce a response
title_short Direct selection on male attractiveness and female preference fails to produce a response
title_sort direct selection on male attractiveness and female preference fails to produce a response
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC319700/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14720309
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-4-1
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