首页 | 本学科首页   官方微博 | 高级检索  
     


The genetics of primary and secondary sexual character trade-offs in a horned beetle
Authors:C M House  L W Simmons
Affiliation:Centre for Ecology and Conservation, School of Biosciences, University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus, Penryn, UK Centre for Evolutionary Biology, School of Animal Biology (M092), The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia.
Abstract:When structures compete for shared resources, this may lead to acquisition and allocation trade-offs so that the enlargement of one structure occurs at the expense of another. Among the studies of morphological trade-offs, their importance has been demonstrated primarily through experimental manipulations and comparative analyses. Relatively, a few studies have investigated the underlying genetic basis of phenotypic patterns. Here, we use a half-sibling breeding design to determine the genetic underpinnings of the phenotypic trade-off between head horns and the male copulatory organ or aedeagus that has been found in the dung beetle Onthophagus taurus. Instead of the predicted negative genetic covariance among characters that trade-off, we find positive genetic covariance between absolute horn and aedeagus length and zero genetic covariance between relative horn and aedeagus length. Therefore, although the genetic covariance between absolute horn and aedeagus length would constrain the independent evolution of primary and secondary sexual characters in this population, there was no evidence of a trade-off. We discuss alternative hypotheses for the observed patterns of genetic correlation between traits that compete for resources and the implications that these have for selection and the evolution of such traits.
Keywords:aedeagus  beetle horns  genetic trade‐offs  heritability  Onthophagus taurus
本文献已被 PubMed 等数据库收录!
设为首页 | 免责声明 | 关于勤云 | 加入收藏

Copyright©北京勤云科技发展有限公司  京ICP备09084417号