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Sex pheromone signal and stability covary with fitness

If sexual signals are costly, covariance between signal expression and fitness is expected. Signal–fitness covariance is important, because it can contribute to the maintenance of genetic variation in signals that are under natural or sexual selection. Chemical signals, such as female sex pheromones...

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Autores principales: Blankers, Thomas, Lievers, Rik, Plata, Camila, van Wijk, Michiel, van Veldhuizen, Dennis, Groot, Astrid T.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8242834/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34234954
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.210180
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author Blankers, Thomas
Lievers, Rik
Plata, Camila
van Wijk, Michiel
van Veldhuizen, Dennis
Groot, Astrid T.
author_facet Blankers, Thomas
Lievers, Rik
Plata, Camila
van Wijk, Michiel
van Veldhuizen, Dennis
Groot, Astrid T.
author_sort Blankers, Thomas
collection PubMed
description If sexual signals are costly, covariance between signal expression and fitness is expected. Signal–fitness covariance is important, because it can contribute to the maintenance of genetic variation in signals that are under natural or sexual selection. Chemical signals, such as female sex pheromones in moths, have traditionally been assumed to be species-recognition signals, but their relationship with fitness is unclear. Here, we test whether chemical, conspecific mate finding signals covary with fitness in the moth Heliothis subflexa. Additionally, as moth signals are synthesized de novo every night, the maintenance of the signal can be costly. Therefore, we also hypothesized that fitness covaries with signal stability (i.e. lack of temporal intra-individual variation). We measured among- and within-individual variation in pheromone characteristics as well as fecundity, fertility and lifespan in two independent groups that differed in the time in between two pheromone samples. In both groups, we found fitness to be correlated with pheromone amount, composition and stability, supporting both our hypotheses. This study is, to our knowledge, the first to report a correlation between fitness and sex pheromone composition in moths, supporting evidence of condition-dependence and highlighting how signal–fitness covariance may contribute to heritable variation in chemical signals both among and within individuals.
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spelling pubmed-82428342021-07-06 Sex pheromone signal and stability covary with fitness Blankers, Thomas Lievers, Rik Plata, Camila van Wijk, Michiel van Veldhuizen, Dennis Groot, Astrid T. R Soc Open Sci Organismal and Evolutionary Biology If sexual signals are costly, covariance between signal expression and fitness is expected. Signal–fitness covariance is important, because it can contribute to the maintenance of genetic variation in signals that are under natural or sexual selection. Chemical signals, such as female sex pheromones in moths, have traditionally been assumed to be species-recognition signals, but their relationship with fitness is unclear. Here, we test whether chemical, conspecific mate finding signals covary with fitness in the moth Heliothis subflexa. Additionally, as moth signals are synthesized de novo every night, the maintenance of the signal can be costly. Therefore, we also hypothesized that fitness covaries with signal stability (i.e. lack of temporal intra-individual variation). We measured among- and within-individual variation in pheromone characteristics as well as fecundity, fertility and lifespan in two independent groups that differed in the time in between two pheromone samples. In both groups, we found fitness to be correlated with pheromone amount, composition and stability, supporting both our hypotheses. This study is, to our knowledge, the first to report a correlation between fitness and sex pheromone composition in moths, supporting evidence of condition-dependence and highlighting how signal–fitness covariance may contribute to heritable variation in chemical signals both among and within individuals. The Royal Society 2021-06-30 /pmc/articles/PMC8242834/ /pubmed/34234954 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.210180 Text en © 2021 The Authors. https://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/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Organismal and Evolutionary Biology
Blankers, Thomas
Lievers, Rik
Plata, Camila
van Wijk, Michiel
van Veldhuizen, Dennis
Groot, Astrid T.
Sex pheromone signal and stability covary with fitness
title Sex pheromone signal and stability covary with fitness
title_full Sex pheromone signal and stability covary with fitness
title_fullStr Sex pheromone signal and stability covary with fitness
title_full_unstemmed Sex pheromone signal and stability covary with fitness
title_short Sex pheromone signal and stability covary with fitness
title_sort sex pheromone signal and stability covary with fitness
topic Organismal and Evolutionary Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8242834/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34234954
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.210180
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