title: The effect of polyandry on a distorter system with differential viabilities in the sexes.
abstract: The presence of selfish genetic elements can have fatal consequences for populations that harbor them. In the well known t haplotype in wild house mice, large proportions of the population die from t/t recessive lethal effects. Due to strong advantages at the gamete level (drive), t haplotypes nevertheless occur at substantial frequencies. The stable presence of a lethal is not the only effect of the t. It also distorts the fate of mutations that differentially affect male and female survival and reproduction (such as in sexual conflict), by giving male selective effects a strong advantage over female selective effects. In a recent study, we proposed polyandry as a potential counterstrategy against t deleterious effects. Here, we show that (1) the efficiency of polyandry in reducing the t frequency strongly depends on the selective context and (2) polyandry helps to reduce male-biased leverage in sex dependent selection.
authors: Animal Behaviour/Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies; University of Zurich; Zurich, Switzerland.
authors: Andri
authors: A
authors: Manser
authors: Anna K
authors: AK
authors: Lindholm
authors: Barbara
authors: B
authors: König
authors: Homayoun C
authors: HC
authors: Bagheri
keywords: intragenomic conflict; overdominance; segregation distortion; sexually antagonistic effects; t haplotype