Can developmental plasticity shape sexual competition and promote reproductive isolation?

Kristin Hubakk, Zachariah Wylde and Russell Bonduriansky

Behavioral Ecology, 2024, vol. 35, issue 4, 288-292

Abstract: Environmental factors, such as dietary nutrients, can shape the expression of developmentally plastic sexual traits in many species. However, while there has been extensive research into the developmental plasticity of sexual traits at the individual level, the broader consequences of this variation at the population scale remain poorly understood. Here, we asked whether plastic responses to the developmental environment can shape sexual competition and initiate reproductive isolation between populations. We reared neriid flies, Telostylinus angusticollis, on nutrient-rich and nutrient-poor larval diets, generating adult flies that differed in body size and secondary sexual trait expression. We then investigated sexual competition in experimental populations from each developmental environment and tested for reproductive isolation between flies from mismatched environments. We found that, compared with poor-diet populations, rich-diet populations exhibited more frequent and escalated male–male combat and more frequent mating and mate-guarding. However, we found no evidence that sexual selection was affected by the developmental environment. Mismatched female–male pairs tended to take longer to mate and rich-diet females often rejected poor-diet males, but mismatched pairs were not less likely to mate within 1 h or produce viable offspring. Our findings suggest that developmental plasticity could generate dramatic differences in sexual competition between populations and could contribute to reproductive isolation.

Keywords: developmental environment; larval diet; mating behavior; Neriidae; plasticity; sexual competition; sexual dimorphism; sexual selection; Telostylinus angusticollis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/arae047 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:beheco:v:35:y:2024:i:4:p:288-292.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Behavioral Ecology is currently edited by Louise Barrett

More articles in Behavioral Ecology from International Society for Behavioral Ecology Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().