Natural and sexual selection in a wild insect population.
The understanding of natural and sexual selection requires both field and laboratory studies to exploit the advantages and avoid the disadvantages of each approach. However, studies have tended to be polarized among the types of organisms studied, with vertebrates studied in the field and invertebrates in the lab. We used video monitoring combined with DNA profiling of all of the members of a wild population of field crickets across two generations to capture the factors predicting the reproductive success of males and females. The factors that predict a male's success in gaining mates differ from those that predict how many offspring he has. We confirm the fundamental prediction that males vary more in their reproductive success than females, and we find that females as well as males leave more offspring when they mate with more partners.
Centre for Ecology and Conservation, School of Biosciences, University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus, Penryn TR10 EZ, UK.
R
R
Rodríguez-Muñoz
A
A
Bretman
J
J
Slate
C A
CA
Walling
T
T
Tregenza
D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D005260:Female; D056084:Genetic Fitness; D006135:Gryllidae / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D052586:Mating Preference, Animal; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats; D010058:Oviposition; D012098:Reproduction; D012641:Selection, Genetic; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal; D014828:Vocalization, Animal