1. The dynamics of sexual conflict over mating rate with endosymbiont infection that affects reproductive phenotypes.
- Author
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Hayashi TI, Marshall JL, and Gavrilets S
- Subjects
- Animals, Female, Male, Orthoptera genetics, Orthoptera microbiology, Orthoptera physiology, Symbiosis, Wolbachia physiology
- Abstract
Maternally inherited endosymbionts have been implicated as significant drivers of sexual conflict within their hosts, typically through sex-ratio manipulation. Empirical studies show that some of these endosymbionts have the potential to influence sexual conflict not by sex-ratio distortion, but by altering reproductive traits within their hosts. Research has already shown that reproductive traits involved in mating/fertilization process are integral 'players' in sexual conflict, thus suggesting the novel hypothesis that endosymbiont-induced changes in reproductive phenotypes can impact the dynamics of sexual conflict. Here, we use a standard quantitative genetic approach to model the effects of endosymbiont-induced changes in a female reproductive trait on the dynamics of sexual conflict over mating/fertilization rate. Our model shows that an endosymbiont-induced alteration of a host female reproductive trait that affects mating rate can maintain the endosymbiont infection within the host population, and does so in the absence of sex-ratio distortion and cytoplasmic incompatibility.
- Published
- 2007
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