Determinants of male fitness: disentangling intra- and inter-sexual selection |
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Authors: | Fitze P S Cote J Martínez-Rica J P Clobert J |
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Affiliation: | Department of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC), Madrid, Spain. patrick.fitze@mncn.csic.es |
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Abstract: | Both intra- and inter-sexual selection may crucially determine a male's fitness. Their interplay, which has rarely been experimentally investigated, determines a male's optimal reproductive strategy and thus is of fundamental importance to the understanding of a male's behaviour. Here we investigated the relative importance of intra- and inter-sexual selection for male fitness in the common lizard. We investigated which male traits predict a male's access to reproduction allowing for both selective pressures and comparing it with a staged mating experiment excluding all types of intra-sexual selection. We found that qualitatively better males were more likely to reproduce and that sexual selection was two times stronger when allowing for both selective pressures, suggesting that inter- and intra-sexual selection determines male fitness and confirming the existence of multi-factorial sexual selection. Consequently, to optimize fitness, males should trade their investment between the traits, which are important for inter- and intra-sexual selection. |
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Keywords: | common lizard inter‐sexual selection intra‐sexual selection Lacerta vivipara male fitness |
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