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Female assortative mate choice functionally validates synthesized male odours of evolving stickleback river–lake ecotypes

During mate choice decisions, females of many vertebrates use male olfactory cues to achieve immunogenetic optimality of their offspring. Three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) populating habitats that differ in their parasite communities evolve locally adapted combinations of genetic va...

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Autores principales: Gahr, Christoph L., Boehm, Thomas, Milinski, Manfred
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6303515/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30958253
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2018.0730
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author Gahr, Christoph L.
Boehm, Thomas
Milinski, Manfred
author_facet Gahr, Christoph L.
Boehm, Thomas
Milinski, Manfred
author_sort Gahr, Christoph L.
collection PubMed
description During mate choice decisions, females of many vertebrates use male olfactory cues to achieve immunogenetic optimality of their offspring. Three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) populating habitats that differ in their parasite communities evolve locally adapted combinations of genetic variants encoded at the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). Such adaptation confers optimal resistance to the local parasite fauna. Immunogenetic signatures co-evolved with local parasites favour population-specific assortative mate choice behaviour. Previous studies have shown that female sticklebacks evaluate male MHC-associated olfactory cues during the process of mate choice, but how habitat-specific information is exchanged between males and females has remained elusive. Here, we directly demonstrate the molecular nature of the olfactory cue providing habitat-specific information. Under controlled laboratory conditions, females that are ready to mate prefer mixtures of synthetic MHC peptide ligands mimicking the optimal allele number of their original population. These results imply that female sticklebacks can determine the number of MHC alleles of their prospective mates, compare it to their own immunogenetic status, and, if optimal with respect to the immunogenetic complementarity, accept the male as mate. Our results suggest a potentially common mechanism of ecological speciation in vertebrates that is based on the olfactory assessment of habitat-specific immunogenetic diversity.
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spelling pubmed-63035152018-12-26 Female assortative mate choice functionally validates synthesized male odours of evolving stickleback river–lake ecotypes Gahr, Christoph L. Boehm, Thomas Milinski, Manfred Biol Lett Animal Behaviour During mate choice decisions, females of many vertebrates use male olfactory cues to achieve immunogenetic optimality of their offspring. Three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) populating habitats that differ in their parasite communities evolve locally adapted combinations of genetic variants encoded at the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). Such adaptation confers optimal resistance to the local parasite fauna. Immunogenetic signatures co-evolved with local parasites favour population-specific assortative mate choice behaviour. Previous studies have shown that female sticklebacks evaluate male MHC-associated olfactory cues during the process of mate choice, but how habitat-specific information is exchanged between males and females has remained elusive. Here, we directly demonstrate the molecular nature of the olfactory cue providing habitat-specific information. Under controlled laboratory conditions, females that are ready to mate prefer mixtures of synthetic MHC peptide ligands mimicking the optimal allele number of their original population. These results imply that female sticklebacks can determine the number of MHC alleles of their prospective mates, compare it to their own immunogenetic status, and, if optimal with respect to the immunogenetic complementarity, accept the male as mate. Our results suggest a potentially common mechanism of ecological speciation in vertebrates that is based on the olfactory assessment of habitat-specific immunogenetic diversity. The Royal Society 2018-12 2018-12-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6303515/ /pubmed/30958253 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2018.0730 Text en © 2018 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Animal Behaviour
Gahr, Christoph L.
Boehm, Thomas
Milinski, Manfred
Female assortative mate choice functionally validates synthesized male odours of evolving stickleback river–lake ecotypes
title Female assortative mate choice functionally validates synthesized male odours of evolving stickleback river–lake ecotypes
title_full Female assortative mate choice functionally validates synthesized male odours of evolving stickleback river–lake ecotypes
title_fullStr Female assortative mate choice functionally validates synthesized male odours of evolving stickleback river–lake ecotypes
title_full_unstemmed Female assortative mate choice functionally validates synthesized male odours of evolving stickleback river–lake ecotypes
title_short Female assortative mate choice functionally validates synthesized male odours of evolving stickleback river–lake ecotypes
title_sort female assortative mate choice functionally validates synthesized male odours of evolving stickleback river–lake ecotypes
topic Animal Behaviour
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6303515/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30958253
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2018.0730
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