Genomic evidence consistent with antagonistic pleiotropy may help explain the evolutionary maintenance of same-sex sexual behaviour in humans

Brendan P. Zietsch (), Morgan J. Sidari, Abdel Abdellaoui, Robert Maier, Niklas Långström, Shengru Guo, Gary W. Beecham, Eden R. Martin, Alan R. Sanders and Karin J. H. Verweij
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Brendan P. Zietsch: University of Queensland
Morgan J. Sidari: University of Queensland
Abdel Abdellaoui: University of Amsterdam
Robert Maier: Harvard Medical School
Niklas Långström: Karolinska Institutet
Shengru Guo: University of Miami
Gary W. Beecham: University of Miami
Eden R. Martin: University of Miami
Alan R. Sanders: NorthShore University HealthSystem Research Institute
Karin J. H. Verweij: University of Amsterdam

Nature Human Behaviour, 2021, vol. 5, issue 9, 1251-1258

Abstract: Abstract Human same-sex sexual behaviour (SSB) is heritable, confers no immediately obvious direct reproductive or survival benefit and can divert mating effort from reproductive opportunities. This presents a Darwinian paradox: why has SSB been maintained despite apparent selection against it? We show that genetic effects associated with SSB may, in individuals who only engage in opposite-sex sexual behaviour (OSB individuals), confer a mating advantage. Using results from a recent genome-wide association study of SSB and a new genome-wide association study on number of opposite-sex sexual partners in 358,426 individuals, we show that, among OSB individuals, genetic effects associated with SSB are associated with having more opposite-sex sexual partners. Computer simulations suggest that such a mating advantage for alleles associated with SSB could help explain how it has been evolutionarily maintained. Caveats include the cultural specificity of our UK and US samples, the societal regulation of sexual behaviour in these populations, the difficulty of measuring mating success and the fact that measured variants capture a minority of the total genetic variation in the traits.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41562-021-01168-8

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