Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/E012620/1
Environmental effects and sexual selection
Fellowship Award
- Fellow:
- Dr S Cotton, University College London, Genetics Evolution and Environment
- Grant held at:
- University College London, Genetics Evolution and Environment
- Science Area:
- Terrestrial
- Overall Classification:
- Terrestrial
- ENRIs:
- Biodiversity
- Science Topics:
- Population Genetics/Evolution
- Conservation Ecology
- Behavioural Ecology
- Abstract:
- Most organisms grow up and live in environments that are variable. For instance, animals may experience differences in food availability that depend on habitat quality. Traits closely related to fitness, such as those involved in reproduction tend to be particularly sensitive to environmental stress; an animal that develops in a low quality environment is likely to grow poorly and suffer from reduced fertility or fecundity, and hence leave fewer offspring and have lower fitness. Of particular interest to many biologists is the effect of environmental variation on sexual selection, the success of individuals in competition for mates. Male sexual ornaments and female mate preferences for them frequently show strong condition-dependence, that is, they are expressed to a greater degree in higher quality individuals. Environmental stress has negative effects on the average expression of ornaments and preferences, and this may lead to a reduction in the strength of sexual selection in harsh environments. However, environmental stress also tends to amplify (inherited and/or random) differences between individuals with respect to quality. So ornaments and mate preferences also tend to become more variable under stress. This increase in variance may actually elevate the strength of selection on male ornaments in harsh environments, as high quality individuals with the largest ornaments or strongest mate preferences leave proportionately more offspring. The relative importance of these two opposing effects on sexual selection (reduced average vs. increased variance) are unknown. But given the high prevalence of both random environmental variation, and deterministic, often deleterious human-derived, effects on habitat quality, they are of huge importance for our understanding of sexual selection and mating systems. My research will investigate the influence of variation in environmental stress on sexual selection in the Malaysian stalk-eyed fly Teleopsis dalmanni. Stalk-eyed flies literally have their eyes on the end of stalks which project from the sides of their heads. Males have highly exaggerated eyespans, which can even exceed body length (female eye-stalks are much shorter). Females prefer to join and mate more often on nocturnal roosting aggregations containing males with large eyespans. Male eyespan and female mate preferences for it are highly condition-dependent in this species. Male eyespans decrease, on average, under stress, and females, on average, become less choosy. However, males reared under stress become more variable in their eyespans; some are large whilst some have only small eye-stalks. The same is true for preference in females under stress; some show strong preferences for large eyespan males, whilst others are much less discriminatory. I will look at how local habitat quality influences sexual selection using a series of field studies in the biologically realistic surroundings of the rainforests of Peninsular Malaysia. I will ask whether environmental stress affects mating behaviour and the distribution of reproductive success among individuals through observation and experiments on ornaments, preference and mating behaviour. For instance, does environmental stress result in changes in the size and composition of harems, the degree of female promiscuity, and the effort a female expends sampling different mates before choosing? How does habitat quality influence a male's likelihood of gaining a harem of females, and what is its effect on his paternity of a multiple mated female's clutch of eggs? These questions will investigated further under more controlled and simplified environments in the laboratory using experimental manipulation of diet quality to create varying levels of stress. Such findings will allow me to test how the strength of selection on ornaments and mate preferences is dependent on variation in the environment in one of the most charismatic species exhibiting sexual selection.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/E012620/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Postdoctoral Fellow (FEC)
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Postdoctoral Fellowship
This fellowship award has a total value of £301,338
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| DI - Other Costs | Indirect - Indirect Costs | DA - Estate Costs | DI - Staff | DA - Other Directly Allocated | DI - T&S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £34,556 | £110,970 | £26,608 | £99,080 | £15,834 | £14,289 |
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