I'm excited to share my paper on the mating preferences of selfish sex chromosomes, now online at Nature! This will be a short thread on the main results. 1/ https://rdcu.be/bFE8c
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The paper addresses a central puzzle of sexual selection: Why do females prefer males who display costly traits? Previous theories: Fisher's runaway and Zahavi's handicap principle. I propose a new mechanism, based on the selfish evolutionary interests of sex chromosomes. 2/
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Consider the W chromosome in ZW species (e.g. birds, butterflies). It is only ever passed from mothers to daughters, and therefore "cares" only about daughters' fitness. So its mate preference should be for males who produce fit daughters, even if they also produce unfit sons 3/
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As an example, a W-linked mating preference for males who exhibit a "sexually antagonistic" trait—which increases fitness in females but decreases it in males—will spread, even if the benefit of the trait in females is tiny compared to its cost in males. 4/
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If the W-linked preference is strong enough, its spread eventually causes the trait to become advantageous (its mating advantage exceeding its viability cost). The trait then spreads. This is possible for traits that severely reduce male survival—e.g. by as much as 80%! 5/
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This process applies to X and Z chromosomes too! They are sex-biased chromosomes, but not sex-specific like the W. Therefore, their selfish interests are slightly weaker. Note that the X cares more for female fitness (like the W) but the Z cares more for male fitness. 6/
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Z-linked mate preferences for male-beneficial, female-costly traits evolve more readily than X-linked preferences for female-beneficial, male-costly traits, for subtle reasons explained in the paper. So, ZW species are especially prone to selfish sex-linked mate preferences! 7/
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I've focused on female mate choice so far, but male mate choice plays an important role in many species! For male mate choice, simply flip the pattern: e.g., a Y chromosome in male mate choice behaves the same as the W in female mate choice. 8/
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The logic also extends to any genetic element that can influence its host's mating behavior and shows sex-specific or sex-biased transmission—mitochondria, intra-cellular parasites like Wolbachia, and even microbiota are all vulnerable! 9/
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The picture this theory paints, of one sex chromosome urging its bearer to mate with that individual, the other sex chromosome saying "no, that one!", and the autosomes saying "neither!", reminded me of this wonderful passage from WD Hamilton: 10/pic.twitter.com/vDka6CnRxV
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Thank you for reading! Please let me know if you have any questions. 11/11
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For an excellent summary of the paper, please check out the News and Views commentary by Mark Kirkpatrick! 12/https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01714-5 …
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