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79 results for “Sex: allocation”
Data from: A sex allocation cost to polyandry in a parasitoid wasp
The costs and benefits of polyandry are central to understanding the near-ubiquity of female multiple mating. Here, we present evidence of a novel cost of polyandry: disrupted sex allocation. In Nasonia vitripennis, a species that is monandrous in the wild but engages in polyandry under laboratory culture conditions, sexual harassment during oviposition results in increased production of sons under conditions that favour female-biased sex ratios. In addition, females more likely to re-mate under harassment produce the least female-biased sex ratios, and these females are unable to mitigate this cost by increasing offspring production. Our results therefore argue that polyandry does not serve to mitigate the costs of harassment (convenience polyandry) in Nasonia. Furthermore, because males benefit from female-biased offspring sex ratios, harassment of ovipositing females also creates a novel cost of that harassment for males.
Data from: The evolutionary dynamics of adaptive virginity, sex-allocation and altruistic helping in haplodiploid animals
In haplodiploids, females can produce sons from unfertilized eggs without mating. However, virgin reproduction is usually considered to be a result of a failure to mate, rather than an adaptation. Here we build an analytical model for evolution of virgin reproduction, sex-allocation, and altruistic female helping in haplodiploid taxa. We show that when mating is costly (e.g. when mating increases predation risk), virginity can evolve as an adaptive female reproductive strategy. Furthermore, adaptive virginity results in strongly divergent sex-ratios in mated and virgin queen nests ('split sex ratios'), which promotes the evolution of altruistic helping by daughters in mated queen nests. However, when helpers evolve to be efficient and increase nest production significantly, virgin reproduction is selected against. Our results suggest that adaptive virginity could have been an important stepping stone on the pathway to eusociality in haplodiploids. We further show that virginity can be an adaptive reproductive strategy also in primitively social haplodiploids if workers bias the sex ratio toward females. By remaining virgin, queens are free to produce sons, the more valuable sex in a female-biased population. Our work brings a new dimension to the studies linking reproductive strategies with social evolution.
Data from: The complex interplay of sex allocation and sexual selection
It is well recognised that sex allocation strategies can be influenced by sexual selection, when females adjust offspring sex ratios in response to their mates' attractiveness. Yet the reciprocal influence of strategic sex allocation on processes of sexual selection has only recently been revealed. Recent theoretical work demonstrates that sex allocation weakens selection for female preferences, leading to the decline of male traits. However, these results have been derived assuming that females have perfect knowledge of mate attractiveness and precise control over cost-free allocation. Relaxing these assumptions highlights the importance of another feedback: that adaptive sex allocation must become difficult to maintain as traits and preferences decline. When sex allocation strategies erode not only traits and preferences but also their own selective advantage, predictions can no longer be expressed as a simple linear correlation between ornament exaggeration and adaptive sex allocation. Instead, strongest sex ratio biases may be found at intermediate trait levels.
Data from: Experimental tests of sex allocation theory with two species of simultaneously hermaphroditic acorn barnacles
Sex allocation theory for simultaneous hermaphrodites predicts increases in relative allocation to male-specific function as competition for fertilizations increases. Theoretical models developed specifically for competing acorn barnacles predict that the proportional allocation to male function increases towards an asymptote of 50% as the number of competitors for fertilizations increases. Experimental manipulations were used to investigate how mate competition affected both relative and absolute allocation to the sex functions for two species of acorn barnacle: Semibalanus balanoides and Balanus glandula. The ratio of male to female allocation did not increase with the number of competitors for either species. However, both species showed increased allocation to male function (estimated as total mass of sex-specific tissues) with increased crowding. Allocation to female function seemed to be limited by other factors and did not vary with mating group size as predicted. Allocation to male and female function were both positively related to body size, but a trade-off between male and female function, a key assumption of prior models, was not observed.
Data from: The size advantage model of sex allocation in the protandrous sex-changer Crepidula fornicata: role of the mating system, sperm storage, and male mobility
Sequential hermaphroditism is adaptive when the reproductive value of an individual varies with size or age, and this relationship differs between males and females. In this case, theory shows that the lifetime reproductive output of an individual is increased by changing sex (a hypothesis referred to as the size-advantage model). Sex-linked differences in size-fitness curves can stem from differential costs of reproduction, the mating system, and differences in growth and mortality between sexes. Detailed empirical data is required to disentangle the relative roles of each of these factors within the theory. Quantitative data are also needed to explore the role of sperm storage, which has not yet been considered with sequential hermaphrodites. Using experimental rearing and paternity assignment, we report relationships between size and reproductive success of Crepidula fornicata, a protandrous (male-first) gastropod. Male reproductive success increased with size due to the polygamous system and stacking behavior of the species, but females nonetheless had greater reproductive success than males of the same size, in agreement with the size-advantage theory. Sperm storage appeared to be a critical determinant of success for both sexes, and modeling the effect of sperm storage showed that it could potentially accelerate sex change in protandrous species.
Data from: Local gamete competition explains sex allocation and fertilization strategies in the sea
Within and across taxa, there is much variation in the mode of fertilization, i.e. whether eggs and/or sperm are released or kept inside or on the surface of the parent's body. Although the evolutionary consequences of fertilization mode are far reaching, transitions in the fertilization mode itself have largely escaped theoretical attention. Here we develop the first evolutionary model of egg retention and release, which also considers transitions between hermaphroditism and dioecy as well as egg size evolution. We provide a unifying explanation for reported associations between small body size, hermaphroditism, and egg retention in marine invertebrates that have puzzled researchers for over three decades. Our model, by including sperm limitation, shows that all these patterns can arise as an evolutionary response to local competition between eggs for fertilization. This can provide a general explanation for three empirical patterns: Sperm casters tend to be smaller than related broadcast spawners, hermaphroditism is disproportionately common in sperm casters, and offspring of sperm casters are larger. Local gamete competition also explains a universal sexual asymmetry: females of some species retain their gametes while males release theirs, but the opposite ('egg casting') lacks evolutionary stability and is apparently not found in nature.
Data from: Larval density, sex and allocation hierarchy affect life-history trait covariances in a bean beetle
<p class="CxSpFirst">Life-history theory aims to understand how different environments result in differential investment in fitness-related traits. While trade-offs between traits are expected, many studies show positive or no correlation between pairs of costly traits. One hypothesis that may explain the inconsistency of trade-offs in the literature is that trait investment may occur in a dichotomous hierarchy (the <i>tree model</i>), that allows for differential trait investment weighted by the traits' respective positions within the hierarchy. Previous mathematical models predict different covariances between traits depending on their position on the allocation tree. While hierarchical differential investment is often used to discuss findings in life-history theory, the role of an allocation hierarchy on trait covariances has not been directly tested. In turn, this study aims to identify trait covariances between behavioral and morphological phenotypes on different branches of an allocation tree in the bean beetle, <i>Callosobruchus maculatus</i>. While trade-offs between copulatory behaviors and morphology were found for both males and females, only traits at the base and far from each other in the hierarchy negatively covaried. This study empirically shows that trade-offs may be the result of hierarchical investment.</p>
Figure 1 from: Liu P-C, Wang J-J, Zhao B, Men J, Wei J-R (2017) Influence of natal host and oviposition experience on sex allocation in a solitary egg parasitoid, Anastatus disparis (Hymenoptera, Eupelmidae). Journal of Hymenoptera Research 58: 29-40. https://doi.org/10.3897/jhr.58.12763
Figure 1 - Proportion of male offspring from maternal A. disparis when simultaneously presented with eggs of two host species. Bars with different lowercase letters are significantly different from each other from the General Linear Models with Univariate test analysis (p<0.001).
Figure 2 from: Liu P-C, Wang J-J, Zhao B, Men J, Wei J-R (2017) Influence of natal host and oviposition experience on sex allocation in a solitary egg parasitoid, Anastatus disparis (Hymenoptera, Eupelmidae). Journal of Hymenoptera Research 58: 29-40. https://doi.org/10.3897/jhr.58.12763
Figure 2 - Proportion of male offspring from female A. disparis with different prior oviposition experience. Bars with different lowercase letters are significantly different from each other from the General Linear Models with Multivariate tests analysis (p<0.001). A3 and D3 represent host A. pernyi eggs and D. japonica eggs in treatment 3, respectively; A4 and D4 represent two hosts in treatment 4; A5 and D5 represent two hosts in treatment 5; A6 and D6 represent two hosts in treatment 6.
Figure 5 in Size-dependent sex allocation in Solanum lycocarpum St. Hil. (Solanaceae)
Figure 5. Interaction between the floral attributes in hermaphrodite flowers. (A) Gynoecium height (cm) versus anther length (cm); (B) Gynoecium height (cm) versus ovary (cm).
Data from: DNA methylation and sex allocation in the parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis
The role of epigenetics in the control and evolution of behavior is being increasingly recognized. Here we test whether DNA methylation influences patterns of adaptive sex allocation in the parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis. Female N. vitripennis allocate offspring sex broadly in line with local mate competition (LMC) theory. However, recent theory has highlighted how genomic conflict may influence sex allocation under LMC, conflict that requires parent-of-origin information to be retained by alleles through some form of epigenetic signal. We manipulated whole-genome DNA methylation in N. vitripennis females using the hypomethylating agent 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine. Across two replicated experiments, we show that disruption of DNA methylation does not ablate the facultative sex allocation response of females, as sex ratios still vary with cofoundress number as in the classical theory. However, sex ratios are generally shifted upward when DNA methylation is disrupted. Our data are consistent with predictions from genomic conflict over sex allocation theory and suggest that sex ratios may be closer to the optimum for maternally inherited alleles.
Data from: Evolutionary consequence of a change in life cycle complexity: a link between precocious development and evolution towards female-biased sex allocation in a hermaphroditic parasite
The evolutionary consequences of changes in the complex life cycles of parasites are not limited to the traits that directly affect transmission. For instance, mating systems that are altered due to precocious sexual maturation in what is typically regarded as an intermediate host may impact opportunities for outcrossing. In turn, reproductive traits may evolve to optimize sex allocation. Here we test the hypothesis that sex allocation evolved towards a more female-biased function in populations of the hermaphroditic digenean trematode Alloglossidium progeneticum that can precociously reproduce in their second hosts. In these precocious populations, parasites are forced to self-fertilize as they remain encysted in their second hosts. In contrast, parasites in obligate 3-host populations have more opportunities to outcross in their third host. We found strong support that in populations with precocious development, allocation to male resources was greatly reduced. We also identified a potential phenotypically plastic response in a body size-sex allocation relationship that may be driven by the competition for mates. These results emphasize how changes in life cycle patterns that alter mating systems can impact the evolution of reproductive traits in parasites.
Data from: The complex interplay of sex allocation and sexual selection
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Data from: DNA methylation and sex allocation in the parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis
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Data from: Sex allocation adjustment to mating group size in a simultaneous hermaphrodite
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Data from: Local gamete competition explains sex allocation and fertilization strategies in the sea
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Data from: Experimental tests of sex allocation theory with two species of simultaneously hermaphroditic acorn barnacles
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Data from: Context-dependent sex allocation: constraints on the expression and evolution of maternal effects
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Data from: Explaining sex differences in lifespan in terms of optimal energy allocation in the baboon
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Data from: Adaptive sex allocation in relation to hatching synchrony and offspring quality in house wrens
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