The effect of sexual harassment on lethal mutation rate in femaleDrosophila melanogaster

Abstract

The rate by which new mutations are introduced into a population may have far-reaching implications for processes at the population level. Theory assumes that all individuals within a population have the same mutation rate, but this assumption may not be true. Compared with individuals in high condition, those in poor condition may have fewer resources available to invest in DNA repair, resulting in elevated mutation rates. Alternatively, environmentally induced stress can result in increased investment in DNA repair at the expense of reproduction. Here, we directly test whether sexual harassment by males, known to reduce female condition, affects female capacity to alleviate DNA damage in Drosophila melanogaster fruitflies. Female gametes can repair double-strand DNA breaks in sperm, which allows manipulating mutation rate independently from female condition. We show that male harassment strongly not only reduces female fecundity, but also reduces the yield of dominant lethal mutations, supporting the hypothesis that stressed organisms invest relatively more in repair mechanisms. We discuss our results in the light of previous research and suggest that social effects such as density and courtship can play an important and underappreciated role in mediating condition-dependent mutation rate.

Strong sexual selection in males against a mutation load that reduces offspring production in seed beetles

“…It has been used to induce mutation loads and infer selection in a range of study systems (e.g. bulb mites: Radwan, ; Drosophila : Agrawal & Wang, ; Maklakov et al ., ; dung beetles: Almbro & Simmons, ; seed beetles: Power & Holman, ).…”

Are flies kind to kin? The role of intra- and inter-sexual relatedness in mediating reproductive conflict

“…The logic invoked by Carazo et al [11] and Pizzari et al [10] for behavioural modification driven by kin selection in intra-sexual interactions should also apply for inter-sexual interactions. In a species such as D. melanogaster where there is considerable inter-locus sexual conflict [15][16][17][18][19][20][21], small changes in the intensity of inter-sexual interactions have the potential to dramatically affect male and female LRS. Thus, determining how kinship and social dynamics might influence sexual conflict has important implications for understanding sexual coevolution in this species, as well as for social evolution in general [28].…”

“…In D. melanogaster, males often fight with each other for pre-copulatory access to females [12][13][14], and competition continues in the post-copulatory realm via the effects of the sperm and accessory gland products (ACPs) of rival males, which are transferred in their ejaculates [15]. Females are often harmed by males, as a direct result of harassment by courting males [16][17][18][19][20], the physical harm associated with mating [16,21,22] and/or the toxic side effects of the ACPs [23][24][25][26][27]. With a wide variety of well-documented intra-and inter-sexual interactions, this species is well suited to the study of sexual conflict.…”

Polyandry enhances offspring viability with survival costs to mothers only when mating exclusively with virgin males inDrosophila melanogaster

“…Given the diversity of the hypotheses explaining multiple mating and recently reviewed in Gowaty (2012;, we used an experimental design (Table 1) allowing simultaneous tests of alternative predictions of multiple hypotheses, while reducing opportunities for male behavioral coercion of females. Using captive Drosophila melanogaster free of Wolbachia and Spiroplasma endosymbionts, we controlled females' exposure to conspecific males so that no female in any treatment was with more than one male in a single day, providing some leveling of the ecological playing field of subjects in a way that seldom occurs in captive studies (Billeter, Jagadeesh, Stepek, Azanchi, & Levine, 2012;Maklakov, Immler, Løvlie, Flis, & Friberg, 2013).…”