title: Quantitative genetics of female mate preferences in an ancestral and a novel environment.
abstract: A female's mate preference is a potentially complex function relating variation in multiple male phenotypes with her probability of accepting individual males as a mate. Estimating the quantitative genetic basis preference functions within a population is empirically challenging yet key to understanding preference evolution. We employed a recently described approach that uses random-coefficient mixed models in the analysis of function-valued traits. Using a half-sibling breeding design in a laboratory-adapted Drosophila serrata population, we estimated the genetic (co)variance function of female preference for male sexual displays composed of nine contact pheromones. The breeding design was performed across two environments: the food to which the population was well adapted and a novel food that reduced average female productivity by 35%. Significant genetic variance in female preference was detected and the majority (64.2%) was attributable to a single genetic dimension (eigenfunction), suggesting that preferences for different pheromones are not genetically independent. The second eigenfunction, accounting for 24% of the total genetic variance, approached significance in a conservative test, suggesting the existence of a second, independent genetic dimension. There was no evidence that the genetic basis of female preference differed between the two environments, suggesting the absence of genotype-by-environment interactions and hence a lack of condition-dependent preference expression.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology and Centre for Advanced Research in Environmental Genomics, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Matthieu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Delcourt
authors.forename: Mark W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Blows
authors.forename: Howard D
authors.initials: HD
authors.lastname: Rundle
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004330:Drosophila / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005838:Genotype; D008297:Male; D052586:Mating Preference, Animal; D012724:Sex Attractants
chemical_list: D012724:Sex Attractants