Sexually Antagonistic Coevolution for Sexual Harassment Can Act as a Barrier to Further Invasions by Parthenogenesis
Authored by Kazutaka Kawatsu
Date Published: 2013
DOI: 10.1086/668832
Sponsors:
Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
Platforms:
No platforms listed
Model Documentation:
Other Narrative
Mathematical description
Model Code URLs:
Model code not found
Abstract
The assumption of a twofold cost of sex not only complicates the
maintenance of sex but also sets conditions for sexual conflict: in
organisms with the twofold cost, males often sexually harass females.
Sexual harassment is detrimental to female fitness and thus might help
maintain sexual populations if male harassment inflicts a harsher cost
on parthenogens than on sexual females (asymmetric harassment cost).
However, the generality of this concept is now considered doubtful
because selective harassment of parthenogens results in loss of mating
opportunities for males. Using three mathematical models, I show here
that sexual harassment still can impose the asymmetric cost on
parthenogens. First, I apply the Lotka-Volterra model to show the degree
of asymmetric harassment cost that permits sex to be maintained stably
in the population. Second, using adaptive dynamics, I examine whether
sexually antagonistic coevolution for sexual harassment, which occurs
only in sexual populations, can promote the asymmetric harassment cost.
Finally, an individual-based model, which assumes a spatial structure
unlike that in the other two, demonstrates that the asymmetric evolution
of harassment cost prevents further invasions of parthenogens from
different patches into sexual lineages; these mechanisms may account for
allopatric distributions of sexual and parthenogenetic lineages as well
as the maintenance of sex.
Tags
Evolution
conflict
Males
Cost
Timema walking-sticks
Male mating harassment
Daphnia-pulex
Reproductive interference
Female resistance
Species interactions