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The effect of cryptic female choice on sex allocation in simultaneous hermaphrodites

Van Velzen, Ellen and Schärer, Lukas and Pen, Ido. (2009) The effect of cryptic female choice on sex allocation in simultaneous hermaphrodites. Proceedings of the Royal Society. Series B, Biological sciences, 276 (1670). pp. 3123-3131.

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Abstract

Sex allocation theory for simultaneous hermaphrodites has focused primarily on the effects of sperm competition, but the role of mate choice has so far been neglected. We present a model to study the coevolution of cryptic female choice and sex allocation in simultaneous hermaphrodites. We show that the mechanism of cryptic female choice has a strong effect on the evolutionary outcome: if individuals remove a fixed proportion of less-preferred sperm, the optimal sex allocation is more female biased (i.e. more biased towards egg production) than without cryptic female choice; conversely, if a fixed amount of sperm is removed, sex allocation is less female-biased than without cryptic female choice, and can easily become male biased (i.e. biased towards sperm production). Under male-biased sex allocation, hermaphroditism can become unstable and the population can split into pure males and hermaphrodites with a female-biased allocation. We discuss the idea that the evolution of sex allocation may depend on the outcome of sexual conflict over the fate of received sperm: the sperm donor may attempt to manipulate or by-pass cryptic female choice and the sperm recipient is expected to resist such manipulation. We conclude that cryptic female choice can have a strong influence on sex allocation in simultaneous hermaphrodites and strongly encourage empirical work on this question.
Faculties and Departments:05 Faculty of Science > Departement Umweltwissenschaften > Integrative Biologie > Evolutionary Biology (Schärer)
UniBasel Contributors:Schärer, Lukas
Item Type:Article, refereed
Article Subtype:Research Article
Publisher:The Royal Society
ISSN:0962-8452
Note:Publication type according to Uni Basel Research Database: Journal article
Language:English
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Last Modified:20 Sep 2017 07:59
Deposited On:22 Mar 2012 14:08

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