Journal
JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
Volume 24, Issue 6, Pages 1351-1362Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2011.02271.x
Keywords
Accord; Drosophila melanogaster; insecticide; selection; transposable element
Categories
Funding
- BBSRC
- University of Exeter
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/G005303/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- NERC [NE/G005303/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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In Drosophila melanogaster, the DDT resistance allele (DDT-R) is beneficial in the presence of DDT. Interestingly, DDT-R also elevates female fitness in the absence of DDT and existed in populations before DDT use. However, DDT-R did not spread regardless of DDT-independent selective advantages in females. We ask whether sexual antagonism could explain why DDT-R did not spread before pesticide use. We tested pre- and post-copulatory male fitness correlates in two genetic backgrounds into which we backcrossed the DDT-R allele. We found costs to DDT-R that depended on the genetic background in which DDT-R was found and documented strong epistasis between genetic background and DDT-R that influenced male size. Although it remains unclear whether DDT-R is generally sexually antagonistic, or whether the fitness costs noted would be sufficient to retard the spread of DDT-R in the absence of DDT, general fitness advantages to DDT-R in the absence of DDT may be unlikely.
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