title: The dynamics of sexual conflict over mating rate with endosymbiont infection that affects reproductive phenotypes.
abstract: Maternally inherited endosymbionts have been implicated as significant drivers of sexual conflict within their hosts, typically through sex-ratio manipulation. Empirical studies show that some of these endosymbionts have the potential to influence sexual conflict not by sex-ratio distortion, but by altering reproductive traits within their hosts. Research has already shown that reproductive traits involved in mating/fertilization process are integral 'players' in sexual conflict, thus suggesting the novel hypothesis that endosymbiont-induced changes in reproductive phenotypes can impact the dynamics of sexual conflict. Here, we use a standard quantitative genetic approach to model the effects of endosymbiont-induced changes in a female reproductive trait on the dynamics of sexual conflict over mating/fertilization rate. Our model shows that an endosymbiont-induced alteration of a host female reproductive trait that affects mating rate can maintain the endosymbiont infection within the host population, and does so in the absence of sex-ratio distortion and cytoplasmic incompatibility.
authors: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA. ti-hayashi@aist.go.jp
authors: T I
authors: TI
authors: Hayashi
authors: J L
authors: JL
authors: Marshall
authors: S
authors: S
authors: Gavrilets
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D009987:Orthoptera / Q000235:genetics / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000502:physiology*; D013559:Symbiosis; D020577:Wolbachia / Q000502:physiology*