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Sigma virus and male reproductive success in Drosophila melanogaster

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Abstract

The risk of disease transmission can affect female mating rate, and thus sexual conflict. Furthermore, the interests of a sexually transmitted organism may align or diverge with those of either sex, potentially making the disease agent a third participant in the sexual arms race. In Drosophila melanogaster, where sexual conflict over female mating rate is well established, we investigated how a common, non-lethal virus (sigma virus) might affect this conflict. We gave uninfected females the opportunity to copulate twice in no-choice trials: either with two uninfected males, or with one male infected with sigma virus followed by an uninfected male. We assessed whether females respond behaviorally to male infection, determined whether male infection affects either female or male reproductive success, and measured offspring infection rates. Male infection status did not influence time to copulation, or time to re-mating. However, male infection did affect male reproductive success: first males sired a significantly greater proportion of offspring, as well as more total offspring, when they were infected with sigma virus. Thus viral infection may provide males an advantage in sperm competition, or, possibly, females may preferentially use infected sperm. We found no clear costs of infection in terms of offspring survival. Viral reproductive success (the number of infected offspring) was strongly correlated with male reproductive success. Further studies are needed to demonstrate whether virus-induced changes in reproductive success affect male and female lifetime fitness, and whether virus-induced changes are under male, female, or viral control.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Sebastian Vasquez and Lyvie-Sara Sylvestre for help keeping the flies and setting up experiments, and H. Jane Brockmann and L. Sirot for helpful discussions. This work was funded by National Institutes of Health grant GM083192.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Florida, P.O. Box 118525, Gainesville, FL, 32611-8525, USA

    Clare C. Rittschof, Swetapadma Pattanaik, Laura Johnson, Jérémie Brusini & Marta L. Wayne

  2. Department of Entomology and Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois, 505 S Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA

    Clare C. Rittschof

  3. Department of Entomology and Nematology, University of Florida, P.O. Box 110620, Gainesville, FL, 32611-0620, USA

    Luis F. Matos

  4. Department of Biology, Eastern Washington University, 258 Science Building, Cheney, WA, 99004, USA

    Luis F. Matos

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  1. Clare C. Rittschof
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  2. Swetapadma Pattanaik
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  3. Laura Johnson
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  4. Luis F. Matos
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Correspondence to Clare C. Rittschof.

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Communicated by S. Cremer

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Rittschof, C.C., Pattanaik, S., Johnson, L. et al. Sigma virus and male reproductive success in Drosophila melanogaster . Behav Ecol Sociobiol 67, 529–540 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-012-1472-7

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