Genetics of intersexual selection: conflict and coevolution

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Holger Schielzeth
• Subject Area: Evolution, Anthropology
• Term: from 2012 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 211132886

Adaptive evolutionary change is based on selection acting on heritable traits and knowledge about the strength of selection and the heritability allows predicting the response to selection. Sexual selection is a particularly potent force that can result in the evolution of extravagated ornaments and is therefore a driving force for generating biological diversity. I will study the genetics of intersexual coevolution in the grasshopper Gomphocerus sibiricus. I will estimate the genetic and environmental components of phenotypic variance in preferences and ornaments and the genetic correlations between them. Furthermore, I will quantify the strength and environmental fluctuation in the strength of sexual selection. Another aspect of intersexual coevolution is sexual conflict over resource allocation. This is particularly pronounced in a promiscuous mating system. I will address antagonistic coevolution using the tools of quantitative genetics that allow describing the conflict as a system of interacting phenotypes, in which the genes of one individual influence the phenotypes of other individuals. Finally, I will elucidate the molecular genetic basis of sexually selected traits using genome-wide genotyping of molecular markers. This will enable the identification of functional genetic variants underlying the quantitative traits under selection.

• DFG Programme: Independent Junior Research Groups