Morrow, Edward H, Arnqvist, Göran and Pitnick, Scott (2003) Adaptation versus pleiotropy: why do males harm their mates? Behavioral Ecology, 14 (6). pp. 802-806. ISSN 1465-7279

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

Recent studies have documented male traits that cause physical harm to their mates during copulation. Such harm has been suggested to either (1) arise as a negative pleiotropic side effect of adaptations that give males a reproductive advantage in another context or (2) represent a male adaptation per se. In other words, male traits that cause harm to their mates may become established despite the fact that they cause harm or because they do so. A critical assumption of the latter hypotheses is that females respond to infliction of harm in a manner that is beneficial to their mates: by reducing their propensity to remate and/or by elevating their current reproductive rate. In the present study, we test this assumption by experimentally inflicting various forms of harm to females immediately after copulation in three different insect species. We reveal that females do not delay remating or increase their reproductive rate after being harmed but, on the contrary, remate sooner and lay fewer eggs in some cases. We conclude that selection for infliction of harm to females per se is unlikely. Instead, available empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that harmful male traits arise as negative pleiotropic side effects of adaptations that yield other selective advantages to males during reproductive competition

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	School of Life Sciences > Evolution, Behaviour and Environment
Subjects:	Q Science > QH Natural history > QH0301 Biology > QH0359 Evolution
Depositing User:	Ted Morrow
Date Deposited:	12 Nov 2012 13:29
Last Modified:	12 Nov 2012 13:29
URI:	http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/40259

📧 Request an update