Francisco García‐González

University of Western Australia

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Leigh W. Simmons

University of Western Australia

Jonathan P. Evans

University of Western Australia

Montserrat Gomendio

Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales

Eduardo Rodríguez-Expósito

Estación Biológica de Doñana

Renée C. Firman

University of Western Australia

Laura M. Travers

University of East Anglia

Eduardo R. S. Roldán

Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales

Jamie N. Tedeschi

University of Queensland

F Ponz

Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria

Damian K. Dowling

Monash University

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University of Western Australia

Google (United States)

Estación Biológica de Doñana

Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas

Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales

University of Exeter

University of Padua

Monash University

Australian National University

Environmental Earth Sciences

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Sexual selection buffers the negative consequences of population fragmentation on adaptive plastic responses to increasing temperatures

Evolution (2023)

Maider Iglesias‐Carrasco Beatriz Taboada Miguel Lozano Pau Carazo Roberto García‐Roa

Whether sexual selection facilitates or hampers the ability to plastically respond to novel environments might depend on population structure, via its effects on sexual interactions and associated fitness payoffs. Using experimentally evolved lines of the seed beetle Callosobruchus maculatus, we tested whether individuals evolving under different sexual selection (monogamy vs. polygamy) and population spatial structure (metapopulation vs. undivided populations) treatments differed in their response across developmental thermal conditions (control, hot, or stressful) in a range of fitness and fitness-associated traits. We found that individuals from subdivided populations had lower lifetime reproductive success at hot temperatures, but only in lines evolving under relaxed sexual selection, revealing a complex interaction between sexual selection, population structure, and thermal environmental stress on fitness. We also found an effect of population structure on several traits, including fertility and adult emergence success, under exposure to high thermal conditions. Finally, we found a strong negative effect of hot and stressful temperatures on fitness and associated traits. Our results show that population structure can exacerbate the impact of a warming climate, potentially leading to declines in population viability, but that sexual selection can buffer the negative influence of population subdivision on adaptation to warm temperatures.

Metapopulation

Genetic Fitness

Local adaptation

Population fragmentation

Experimental Evolution

10.1093/evolut/qpad193

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Citations (2)

Can Sexual Selection Drive the Evolution of Sperm Cell Structure?

Cells (2021)

Leigh W. Simmons Francisco García‐González

Sperm cells have undergone an extraordinarily divergent evolution among metazoan animals. Parker recognized that because female animals frequently mate with more than one male, sexual selection would continue after mating and impose strong selection on sperm cells to maximize fertilization success. Comparative analyses among species have revealed a general relationship between the strength of selection from sperm competition and the length of sperm cells and their constituent parts. However, comparative analyses cannot address causation. Here, we use experimental evolution to ask whether sexual selection can drive the divergence of sperm cell phenotype, using the dung beetle Onthophagus taurus as a model. We either relaxed sexual selection by enforcing monogamy or allowed sexual selection to continue for 20 generations before sampling males and measuring the total length of sperm cells and their constituent parts, the acrosome, nucleus, and flagella. We found differences in the length of the sperm cell nucleus but no differences in the length of the acrosome, flagella, or total sperm length. Our data suggest that different sperm cell components may respond independently to sexual selection and contribute to the divergent evolution of these extraordinary cells.

10.3390/cells10051227

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Citations (4)

Sperm sex ratio adjustment in a mammal: perceived male competition leads to elevated proportions of female-producing sperm

Biology Letters (2020)

Renée C. Firman Jamie N. Tedeschi Francisco García‐González

Mammal sex allocation research has focused almost exclusively on maternal traits, but it is now apparent that fathers can also influence offspring sex ratios. Parents that produce female offspring under conditions of intense male–male competition can benefit with greater assurance of maximized grand-parentage. Adaptive adjustment in the sperm sex ratio, for example with an increase in the production of X-chromosome bearing sperm (CBS), is one potential paternal mechanism for achieving female-biased sex ratios. Here, we tested this mechanistic hypothesis by varying the risk of male–male competition that male house mice perceived during development, and quantifying sperm sex ratios at sexual maturity. Our analyses revealed that males exposed to a competitive ‘risk’ produced lower proportions of Y-CBS compared to males that matured under ‘no risk’ of competition. We also explored whether testosterone production was linked to sperm sex ratio variation, but found no evidence to support this. We discuss our findings in relation to the adaptive value of sperm sex ratio adjustments and the role of steroid hormones in socially induced sex allocation.

Sex allocation

10.1098/rsbl.2019.0929

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Citations (13)

Lifetime changes in phenotypic expression and evolutionary potential of female mating traits in Drosophila melanogaster

Animal Behaviour (2016)

Laura M. Travers Leigh W. Simmons Francisco García‐González

Courtship display

Antagonistic Coevolution

10.1016/j.anbehav.2016.09.002

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Citations (6)

Experimental coevolution of male and female genital morphology

Nature Communications (2011)

Leigh W. Simmons Francisco García‐González

Coevolution

Morphology

Sex organ

Female circumcision

10.1038/ncomms1379

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Citations (78)

EVOLUTIONARY REDUCTION IN TESTES SIZE AND COMPETITIVE FERTILIZATION SUCCESS IN RESPONSE TO THE EXPERIMENTAL REMOVAL OF SEXUAL SELECTION IN DUNG BEETLES

Evolution (2008)

Leigh W. Simmons Francisco García‐González

Sexual selection is thought to favor the evolution of secondary sexual traits in males that contribute to mating success. In species where females mate with more than one male, sexual selection also continues after copulation in the form of sperm competition and cryptic female choice. Theory suggests that sperm competition should favor traits such as testes size and sperm production that increase a male's competitive fertilization success. Studies of experimental evolution offer a powerful approach for assessing evolutionary responses to variation in sexual selection pressures. Here we removed sexual selection by enforcing monogamy on replicate lines of a naturally polygamous horned beetle, Onthophagus taurus, and monitoring male investment in their testes for 21 generations. Testes size decreased in monogamous lines relative to lines in which sexual selection was allowed to continue. Differences in testes size were dependent on selection history and not breeding regime. Males from polygamous lines also had a competitive fertilization advantage when in sperm competition with males from monogamous lines. Females from polygamous lines produced sons in better condition, and those from monogamous lines increased their sons condition by mating polygamously. Rather than being costly for females, multiple mating appears to provide females with direct and/or indirect benefits. Neither body size nor horn size diverged between our monogamous and polygamous lines. Our data show that sperm competition does drive the evolution of testes size in onthophagine beetles, and provide general support for sperm competition theory.

Experimental Evolution

10.1111/j.1558-5646.2008.00479.x

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Citations (150)

Harm to females increases with male body size inDrosophila melanogaster

Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (2002)

Scott Pitnick Francisco García‐González

Previous studies indicate that female Drosophila melanogaster are harmed by their mates through copulation. Here, we demonstrate that the harm that males inflict upon females increases with male size. Specifically, both the lifespan and egg-production rate of females decreased significantly as an increasing function of the body size of their mates. Consequently, females mating with larger males had lower lifetime fitness. The detrimental effect of male size on female longevity was not mediated by male effects on female fecundity, egg-production rate or female-remating behaviour. Similarly, the influence of male size on female lifetime fecundity was independent of the male-size effect on female longevity. There was no relationship between female size and female resistance to male harm. Thus, although increasing male body size is known to enhance male mating success, it has a detrimental effect on the direct fitness of their mates. Our results indicate that this harm is a pleiotropic effect of some other selected function and not an adaptation. To the extent that females prefer to mate with larger males, this choice is harmful, a pattern that is consistent with the theory of sexually antagonistic coevolution.

10.1098/rspb.2002.2090

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Citations (221)

Evolutionary change in testes tissue composition among experimental populations of house mice

Evolution (2015)

Renée C. Firman Francisco García‐González Evan M. Thyer S. S. Wheeler Zayaputeri Yamin

Theory assumes that postcopulatory sexual selection favors increased investment in testes size because greater numbers of sperm within the ejaculate increase the chance of success in sperm competition, and larger testes are able to produce more sperm. However, changes in the organization of the testes tissue may also affect sperm production rates. Indeed, recent comparative analyses suggest that sperm competition selects for greater proportions of sperm-producing tissue within the testes. Here, we explicitly test this hypothesis using the powerful technique of experimental evolution. We allowed house mice (Mus domesticus) to evolve via monogamy or polygamy in six replicate populations across 24 generations. We then used histology and image analysis to quantify the proportion of sperm-producing tissue (seminiferous tubules) within the testes of males. Our results show that males that had evolved with sperm competition had testes with a higher proportion of seminiferous tubules compared with males that had evolved under monogamy. Previously, it had been shown that males from the polygamous populations produced greater numbers of sperm in the absence of changes in testes size. We thus provide evidence that sperm competition selects for an increase in the density of sperm-producing tissue, and consequently increased testicular efficiency.

House mice

Experimental Evolution

10.1111/evo.12603

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Citations (38)

FERTILIZATION SUCCESS AND THE ESTIMATION OF GENETIC VARIANCE IN SPERM COMPETITIVENESS

Evolution (2010)

Francisco García‐González Jonathan P. Evans

A key question in sexual selection is whether the ability of males to fertilize eggs under sperm competition exhibits heritable genetic variation. Addressing this question poses a significant problem, however, because a male's ability to win fertilizations ultimately depends on the competitive ability of rival males. Attempts to partition genetic variance in sperm competitiveness, as estimated from measures of fertilization success, must therefore account for stochastic effects due to the random sampling of rival sperm competitors. In this contribution, we suggest a practical solution to this problem. We advocate the use of simple cross‐classified breeding designs for partitioning sources of genetic variance in sperm competitiveness and fertilization success and show how these designs can be used to avoid stochastic effects due to the random sampling of rival sperm competitors. We illustrate the utility of these approaches by simulating various scenarios for estimating genetic parameters in sperm competiveness, and show that the probability of detecting additive genetic variance in this trait is restored when stochastic effects due to the random sampling of rival sperm competitors are controlled. Our findings have important implications for the study of the evolutionary maintenance of polyandry.

Competitor analysis

Trait

10.1111/j.1558-5646.2010.01127.x

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Citations (28)

Dietary stress increases the total opportunity for sexual selection and modifies selection on condition‐dependent traits

Ecology Letters (2019)

Silvia Cattelan Jonathan P. Evans Francisco García‐González Elisa Morbiato Andrea Pilastro

Abstract Although it is often expected that adverse environmental conditions depress the expression of condition‐dependent sexually selected traits, the full consequences of environmental change for the action of sexual selection, in terms of the opportunity for total sexual selection and patterns of phenotypic selection, are unknown. Here we show that dietary stress in guppies, Poecilia reticulata, reduces the expression of several sexually selected traits and increases the opportunity for total sexual selection (standardized variance in reproductive success) in males. Furthermore, our results show that dietary stress modulates the relative importance of precopulatory (mating success) and postcopulatory (relative fertilization success) sexual selection, and that the form of multivariate sexual selection (linear vs. nonlinear) depends on dietary regime. Overall, our results are consistent with a pattern of heightened directional selection on condition‐dependent sexually selected traits under environmental stress, and underscore the importance of sexual selection in shaping adaptation in a changing world.

Ecological selection

10.1111/ele.13443

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Citations (23)