measure for measure: female responses to the social and sexual environment.

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We respond to our environments in all sorts of ways, generally to fit in or become more competitive - such responses are usually beneficial, though can also be expressed in a pathological manner as so-called 'gang' or 'lad' culture. As an example of a social / sexual response, we may often adopt the speech patterns or mannerisms of the people we are talking to in an unknowing effort to ease communication. The animal world is full of analogous examples. Males in groups perceive that they are under a potentially elevated risk of competition for mates and matings. Hence such males may compete more strongly for matings, elevate their courtship rituals, mate for longer and transfer more sperm and ejaculate proteins when they do mate. These effects have been shown to benefit males that are subject to reproductive competition by allowing them to increase their investment in reproduction when it is relevant to do so.Our work shows that females also show substantial variation in responses to males, mating and sexual context. However, virtually nothing is yet known about the significance of these responses. Unlike for males, we do not know the benefits of responding to the sexual environment, nor what the consequences are for the female's offspring. This is especially important as parental social experience can influence offspring performance through non-genetic effects. Hence mothers may be able to 'prepare' their offspring for the prevailing competitive environment.Hence, we conclude that both sexes can express considerable plasticity in responses to the environment, which offers much raw material upon which natural selection can act. Yet the significance of all this genetic variation remains a mystery.In addition, given that both sexes can exhibit reproductive plasticity (e.g. in how much investment to make in each reproductive episode) it is surprising that we don't yet know what the sum contribution of these effects is to an individual's overall reproductive success. When both mating partners are in agreement with one another over reproductive decisions, then '2 partner plasticity' should increase overall reproductive success. However, if there is conflict, as there often is, then the benefits of plasticity expressed by each partner may cancel each other out.All these ideas have never previously been tested.We propose here a highly novel research programme to tackle big gaps in our understanding of sexual plasticity in females. We will use fully genome-sequenced 'iso-female' lines. These offer the potential to measure the extent of genetic variation in each of the experiments we will conduct and, in the future, to pin down the genome regions associated with each reproductive character in much the same way as tests of genes 'for' specific diseases are conducted by medical researchers. We have 3 broad aims:1. To measure the benefits for females of expressing reproductive plasticity.2. To discover whether females can signal the likely competitive environment into which their male and female offspring will emerge.3. To discover how the plastic responses of male and females interact. The results will contribute significantly to our fundamental understanding of reproductive decisions made by males and females. They will also reveal the mechanisms by which females can sense competition and signal competitiveness to future generations.