Collaborative Research: Reciprocal Effects of Female Choiceand Male Traits in Poecillia Reticulata

第二性特征在动物中很常见，而男性特征有时发展得如此强烈，以至于他们看起来不适应。是什么导致了特定群体中男性特征和女性偏好的特定组合，以及为什么群体进化出不同的特征组合？研究人员正在孔雀鱼的几个层面上解决这个问题：女性选择的机制，女性选择对种群内颜色模式演变的影响，以及(从性选择理论)测试女性选择标准和男性特征在种群之间存在共同差异的预测。这是与加州大学圣巴巴拉分校约翰·A·恩德勒的合作成果。他们建议明确测试来自性选择理论的两个主要预测。首先，他们将研究男性特征和女性选择的相互进化。其次，他们建议探索感觉驱动过程的影响，以及这如何与男性特征和女性选择的进化相互作用。为了做到这一点，他们提议进行三个长期的选择实验，这应该会导致女性偏好和男性特征的长期基因变化。一项实验选择了男性的特征，并寻找女性偏好的演变。另一种选择是女性偏好(通过光谱敏感度的选择)，并寻找男性特征的进化。第三种通过改变环境光颜色和捕食者的颜色视觉来改变(对雌性和捕食者)颜色模式的感知，并寻找雄性特征和雌性偏好的变化。研究人员继续工作的提议将产生一个异常完整的理解，即在性选择和捕食的影响下，影响雌性选择和次级雄性特征的长期联合遗传变化的过程。

Secondary sexual traits are common in animals, and male traits are sometimes so strongly developed that they appear maladaptive. What causes a particular combination of male traits and female preferences in a given population, and why do populations evolve different combinations of traits? The investigators are addressing this question in the guppy at several levels: the mechanisms of female choice, the effects of female choice on the evolution of color patterns within populations, and testing the prediction (from sexual selection theory) of co-divergence of female choice criteria and male traits among populations. This is a collaborative effort with John A. Endler, University of California @ Santa Barbara. They propose to explicitly test two major predictions from sexual selection theory. First, they will investigate the reciprocal evolution of male traits and female choice. Second, they propose to explore the effects of the sensory drive process, and how this interacts with the evolution of male traits and female choice. In order to do this, they propose to carry out three long-term selection experiments which should lead to long term genetic changes in female preferences and male traits. One experiment selects for male traits and looks for evolution of female preferences. Another selects for female preferences (via selection on spectral sensitivity) and looks for evolution of male traits. The third modifies the perception of color patterns (to females and predators) by varying ambient light color and predator color vision, and looks for changes in male traits and female preferences. The proposed continuation of the investigators work will yield an unusually complete understanding of the processes which affect the long term joint genetic change of female choice and secondary male traits under the influence of sexual selection and predation.