Abstract
The occurrence of alternative reproductive phenotypes is widespread in most animal taxa. The majority of known examples best fit the notion of alternative tactics within a conditional strategy where the fitness pay-offs depend on an individual's competitive ability or status. Individuals are proposed as "choosing" the tactic that maximizes their fitness, given their status relative to others in the population. Theoretically, status-dependent selection should determine when an animal should switch between alternative tactics. While a number of studies have demonstrated unequal fitness pay-offs associated with alternative tactics, none, to our knowledge, have examined the fitness functions necessary for predicting when individuals should switch between tactics. Here, we use a dimorphic male beetle in order to provide the first empirically derived fitness function across alternative reproductive phenotypes. Our data provide empirical support for a game-theoretic conditional strategy that has evolved under status-dependent selection.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (208.0 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Coltman D. W., Bancroft D. R., Robertson A., Smith J. A., Clutton-Brock T. H., Pemberton J. M. Male reproductive success in a promiscuous mammal: behavioural estimates compared with genetic paternity. Mol Ecol. 1999 Jul;8(7):1199–1209. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-294x.1999.00683.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Emlen D. J., Nijhout H. F. Hormonal control of male horn length dimorphism in the dung beetle Onthophagus taurus (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae). J Insect Physiol. 1999 Jan;45(1):45–53. doi: 10.1016/s0022-1910(98)00096-1. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Hunt J., Simmons L. W. Maternal and paternal effects on offspring phenotype in the dung beetle Onthophagus taurus. Evolution. 2000 Jun;54(3):936–941. doi: 10.1111/j.0014-3820.2000.tb00093.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Moczek AP, Emlen DJ. Male horn dimorphism in the scarab beetle, Onthophagus taurus: do alternative reproductive tactics favour alternative phenotypes? Anim Behav. 2000 Feb;59(2):459–466. doi: 10.1006/anbe.1999.1342. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- doi: 10.1098/rspb.1997.0031. [DOI] [PMC free article] [Google Scholar]
- doi: 10.1098/rspb.1999.0614. [DOI] [PMC free article] [Google Scholar]
- doi: 10.1098/rstb.1997.0061. [DOI] [PMC free article] [Google Scholar]
- Tomkins J. L., Simmons L. W. Sperm competition games played by dimorphic male beetles: fertilization gains with equal mating access. Proc Biol Sci. 2000 Aug 7;267(1452):1547–1553. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2000.1177. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]