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The attractiveness fragment—AFLP analysis of local adaptation and sexual selection in a caeliferan grasshopper, Chorthippus biguttulus

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Abstract

Genetic variability among males is a necessary precondition for the evolution of female choice based on indirect genetic benefits. In addition to mutations and host–parasite cycles, migration of locally adapted individuals offers an explanation for the maintenance of genetic variability. In a previous study, conducting a reciprocal transplant experiment on a grasshopper, Chorthippus biguttulus, we found that environmental conditions significantly influenced not only body condition but also an important trait of male calling song, the amplitude of song. Although not significant, all other analysed physical and courtship song traits and attractiveness were superior in native than in transferred males. Thus, we concluded that local adaptation has a slight but consistent influence on a range of traits in our study populations, including male acoustic attractiveness. In our present study, we scanned male grasshoppers from the same two populations for amplification fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) loci connected with acoustic attractiveness to conspecific females. We found greater differences in allele frequencies between the two populations, for some loci, than are expected from a balance between drift and gene flow. These loci are potentially connected with locally adapted traits. We examined whether these alleles show the proposed genotype environment interaction by having different associations with attractiveness in the two populations. One locus was significantly related to sexual attractiveness; however, this was independent of the males’ population affiliation. Future research on the evolution of female choice will benefit from knowledge of the underlying genetic architecture of male traits under intraspecific sexual selection, and the ‘population genomics’ approach can be a powerful tool for revealing this structure.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Haruki Tatsuta for indispensable help with lab work as well as for statistical inspiration. All people working at lab 10.08 in the School of Biology at Leeds University were always a source of fruitful discussion and helped wherever they could. The authors would like to thank Anne Seelbach, Carsten Pollmann, Robert Jehle, Jens Krobbach and three anonymous referees for useful comments on the manuscript. The present study was financially supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (RE 1167/3) and by the EU with a Marie Curie EST Grant. All experiments conducted comply with the current laws of Germany.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aquatic Ecology, ETH/EAWAG, Ueberlandstrasse 133, Duebendorf, Switzerland

    Kirsten Klappert

  2. Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Roger K. Butlin

  3. Evolutionary Biology, University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany

    Klaus Reinhold

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  1. Kirsten Klappert
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  2. Roger K. Butlin
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  3. Klaus Reinhold
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Correspondence to Kirsten Klappert.

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Klappert, K., Butlin, R.K. & Reinhold, K. The attractiveness fragment—AFLP analysis of local adaptation and sexual selection in a caeliferan grasshopper, Chorthippus biguttulus . Naturwissenschaften 94, 667–674 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-007-0245-z

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