title: Cross-generational effects of sexual harassment on female fitness in the guppy.
abstract: Sexual harassment is a common outcome of sexual conflict over mating rate. A large number of studies have identified several direct costs to females of sexual harassment including energy expenditure and reduced foraging ability. However, the fitness consequences of sexual harassment for descendants have rarely been investigated. Here, we manipulated the level of sexual harassment and mating rate in two groups of female guppies, Poecilia reticulata, a live-bearing fish in which sexual conflict over mating rate is particularly pronounced. Each female was allowed to interact with three males for one day (low sexual harassment, LSH) or for eight days (high sexual harassment, HSH) during each breeding cycle throughout their life. Female lifetime fecundity did not differ between the groups, but we found a strong effect on offspring fitness. HSH females produced (1) daughters with smaller bodies and (2) sons with shorter gonopodia, which were less attractive to females and less successful in coercive matings than their LSH counterparts. Although these results may be influenced by the indirect effects of sex ratio differences between treatments, they suggest that sexual harassment and elevated mating rate can have negative cross-generational fitness effects and more profound evolutionary consequences than currently thought.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Padova, via U. Bassi 58/B, 35131 Padova, Italy. clelia.gasparini@unipd.it
authors.forename: Clelia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gasparini
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Devigili
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pilastro
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D011036:Poecilia / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D012098:Reproduction; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal