Environmental complexity mitigates the demographic impact of sexual selection.
Ecol Lett
; 27(1): e14355, 2024 Jan.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38225825
ABSTRACT
Sexual selection and the evolution of costly mating strategies can negatively impact population viability and adaptive potential. While laboratory studies have documented outcomes stemming from these processes, recent observations suggest that the demographic impact of sexual selection is contingent on the environment and therefore may have been overestimated in simple laboratory settings. Here we find support for this claim. We exposed copies of beetle populations, previously evolved with or without sexual selection, to a 10-generation heatwave while maintaining half of them in a simple environment and the other half in a complex environment. Populations with an evolutionary history of sexual selection maintained larger sizes and more stable growth rates in complex (relative to simple) environments, an effect not seen in populations evolved without sexual selection. These results have implications for evolutionary forecasting and suggest that the negative demographic impact of sexually selected mating strategies might be low in natural populations.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Preferencia en el Apareamiento Animal
/
Selección Sexual
Tipo de estudio:
Risk_factors_studies
Límite:
Animals
Idioma:
En
Año:
2024
Tipo del documento:
Article