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Female polymorphisms, sexual conflict and limits to speciation processes in animals

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Abstract

Heritable and visually detectable polymorphisms, such as trophic polymorphisms, ecotypes, or colour morphs, have become classical model systems among ecological geneticists and evolutionary biologists. The relatively simple genetic basis of many polymorphisms (one or a few loci) makes such species well-suited to study evolutionary processes in natural settings. More recently, polymorphic systems have become popular when studying the early stages of the speciation process and mechanisms facilitating or constraining the evolution of reproductive isolation. Although colour polymorphisms have been studied extensively in the past, we argue that they have been underutilized as model systems of constraints on speciation processes. Colouration traits may function as signalling characters in sexual selection contexts, and the maintenance of colour polymorphisms is often due to frequency-dependent selection. One important issue is why there are so few described cases of female polymorphisms. Here we present a synthetic overview of female sexual polymorphisms, drawing from our previous work on female colour polymorphisms in lizards and damselflies. We argue that female sexual polymorphisms have probably been overlooked in the past, since workers have mainly focused on male-male competition over mates and have not realized the ecological sources of genetic variation in female fitness. Recent experimental evolution studies on fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) have demonstrated significant heritable variation among female genotypes in the fitness costs of resistance or tolerance to male mating harassment. In addition, female-female competition over resources could also generate genetic variation in female fitness and promote the maintenance of female sexual polymorphisms. Female sexual polymorphisms could subsequently either be maintained as intrapopulational polymorphisms or provide the raw material for the formation of new species.

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by grants from the Swedish Research Council (VR), and The Swedish Council for Environment, Agriculture and Spatial Planning (FORMAS) to E. I. S. We are grateful to Fabrice Eroukhmanoff, Roger Härdling, Kristina Karlsson, Anna Runemark and other members of our research laboratory for stimulating discussions on female polymorphisms over the past years, and to three anonymous referees for criticisms on the first version of this manuscript. We also wish to thank Ola Fincke for providing us with a pre-print of her recent paper that was in press when we finished this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section for Animal Ecology, Ecology Building, Lund University, Lund, 223 62, Sweden

    Erik I. Svensson & Thomas P. Gosden

  2. Department of Biology, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, K7L 3N6

    Jessica K. Abbott

  3. Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE-CNRS, UMR 5175), 1919 route de Mende, Montpellier Cedex 5, 34293, France

    Audrey Coreau

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  1. Erik I. Svensson
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  2. Jessica K. Abbott
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  3. Thomas P. Gosden
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  4. Audrey Coreau
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Correspondence to Erik I. Svensson.

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Svensson, E.I., Abbott, J.K., Gosden, T.P. et al. Female polymorphisms, sexual conflict and limits to speciation processes in animals. Evol Ecol 23, 93–108 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-007-9208-2

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