Determinants of male fitness: disentangling intra- and inter-sexual selection.
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.
Fitze
P S
PS
Department of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC), Madrid, SpainInstituto Pirenaico de Ecología (IPE-CSIC), Avenida Regimiento de Galicia s/n, Jaca (Huesca), SpainLaboratoire Fonctionnement et Evolution des Systèmes Ecologiques, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, FranceStation d'Ecologie Expérimentale du CNRS à Moulis, USR2936, Moulis, Saint-Girons, France.
Cote
J
J
Department of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC), Madrid, SpainInstituto Pirenaico de Ecología (IPE-CSIC), Avenida Regimiento de Galicia s/n, Jaca (Huesca), SpainLaboratoire Fonctionnement et Evolution des Systèmes Ecologiques, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, FranceStation d'Ecologie Expérimentale du CNRS à Moulis, USR2936, Moulis, Saint-Girons, France.
Martínez-Rica
J P
JP
Department of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC), Madrid, SpainInstituto Pirenaico de Ecología (IPE-CSIC), Avenida Regimiento de Galicia s/n, Jaca (Huesca), SpainLaboratoire Fonctionnement et Evolution des Systèmes Ecologiques, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, FranceStation d'Ecologie Expérimentale du CNRS à Moulis, USR2936, Moulis, Saint-Girons, France.
Clobert
J
J
Department of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC), Madrid, SpainInstituto Pirenaico de Ecología (IPE-CSIC), Avenida Regimiento de Galicia s/n, Jaca (Huesca), SpainLaboratoire Fonctionnement et Evolution des Systèmes Ecologiques, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, FranceStation d'Ecologie Expérimentale du CNRS à Moulis, USR2936, Moulis, Saint-Girons, France.
D000818:Animals; D003307:Copulation / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005306:Fertilization / Q000502:physiology; D008116:Lizards / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D052586:Mating Preference, Animal; D012098:Reproduction / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D012641:Selection, Genetic