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Eyespan reflects reproductive quality in wild stalk-eyed flies

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Abstract

Handicap models of sexual selection propose that females use male sexual ornaments as a cue in mate choice because they reflect commodities that increase female fitness, either directly or indirectly. In contrast to studies on vertebrates, most investigations of ornaments in insects and other invertebrate taxa have been conducted under laboratory conditions. There is a pressing need to address questions relating to sexual signalling of quality in natural populations, as the arbitrary and uniform environments found in the laboratory fail to reflect the world under which animals have evolved. We investigated associations between male ornaments (exaggerated eyespan), attractiveness, and reproductive quality in a wild population of the sexually ornamented stalk-eyed fly, Teleopsis dalmanni. We also explored the relationship between eyespan and reproductive quality in females to evaluate the potential for sexually antagonistic selection on eyespan. We show that eyespan is a generic correlate of reproductive quality, acting as a reliable mirror of variation in reproductive fitness in both sexes. Our findings suggest that male ornaments signal commodities that are of interest to females in the natural environment in which they, and mate preferences for them, have evolved. In addition, the covariance between female eyespan and reproductive output suggests that the former may be a reliable cue of quality in its own right. Our data provide important insights into the evolutionary forces that shape the evolution of exaggerated eyespan in wild populations of this species.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by awards from the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (A.P. and R.H.), the Royal Society (A.P. and R.H.), the BBSRC (grants to K. Fowler, A.P., T. Chapman and H. Smith; studentship to J.S.), the Department of Biology, University College London (J.S. and A.P.), and a NERC Fellowship (S.C.). We thank two anonymous reviewers for comments on a previous version of the manuscript, and staff at the Gombak Valley Field Research Centre, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur for assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, Wolfson House, 4 Stephenson Way, London, NW1 2HE, UK

    Samuel Cotton, Jennifer Small & Andrew Pomiankowski

  2. Institute of Biological Science, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Rosli Hashim

  3. CoMPLEX, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK

    Andrew Pomiankowski

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  1. Samuel Cotton
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Correspondence to Samuel Cotton.

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Cotton, S., Small, J., Hashim, R. et al. Eyespan reflects reproductive quality in wild stalk-eyed flies. Evol Ecol 24, 83–95 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-009-9292-6

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