Y-linked Mendelian inheritance of giant and dwarf male morphs in shell-brooding cichlids

Wirtz Orcana, Sabine; Meidl, Patrick; Bonfils, Danielle; Taborsky, Michael (2014). Y-linked Mendelian inheritance of giant and dwarf male morphs in shell-brooding cichlids. Proceedings of the Royal Society. Series B - biological sciences, 281(1794), p. 20140253. Royal Society of London 10.1098/rspb.2014.0253

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Behavioural variation among conspecifics is typically contingent on individual state or environmental conditions. Sex-specific genetic polymorphisms are enigmatic because they lack conditionality, and genes causing adaptive trait variation in one sex may reduce Darwinian fitness in the other. One way to avoid such genetic antagonism is to control sex-specific traits by inheritance via sex chromosomes. Here, controlled laboratory crossings suggest that in snail-brooding cichlid fish a single locus, two-allele polymorphism located on a sex-linked chromosome of heterogametic males generates an extreme reproductive dimorphism. Both natural and sexual selection are responsible for exceptionally large body size of bourgeois males, creating a niche for a miniature male phenotype to evolve. This extreme intrasexual dimorphism results from selection on opposite size thresholds caused by a single ecological factor, empty snail shells used as breeding substrate. Paternity analyses reveal that in the field parasitic dwarf males sire the majority of offspring in direct sperm competition with large nest owners exceeding their size more than 40 times. Apparently, use of empty snail shells as breeding substrate and single locus sex-linked inheritance of growth are the major ecological and genetic mechanisms responsible for the extreme intrasexual diversity observed in Lamprologus callipterus.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE)
08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE) > Behavioural Ecology

UniBE Contributor:

Bonfils, Danielle, Taborsky, Michael

Subjects:

500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology
500 Science > 590 Animals (Zoology)

ISSN:

0962-8452

Publisher:

Royal Society of London

Language:

English

Submitter:

Karin Schneeberger

Date Deposited:

14 Feb 2017 10:20

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:00

Publisher DOI:

10.1098/rspb.2014.0253

PubMed ID:

25232141

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.91481

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/91481

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