PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Okada, Kensuke
AU  - Katsuki, Masako
AU  - Sharma, Manmohan D.
AU  - Kiyose, Katsuya
AU  - Seko, Tomokazu
AU  - Okada, Yasukazu
AU  - Wilson, Alastair J.
AU  - Hosken, David J.
TI  - Natural selection reverses the exaggeration of a male sexually selected trait, which increases female fitness
AID  - 10.1101/2020.10.15.340562
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.10.15.340562
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/10/16/2020.10.15.340562.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/10/16/2020.10.15.340562.full
AB  - Theory shows how sexual selection can exaggerate male traits beyond naturally selected optima and also how natural selection can ultimately halt trait elaboration. Empirical evidence supports this theory, but to date, there have been no experimental evolution studies directly testing this logic, and little examination of possible associated effects on female fitness. Here we used experimental evolution of replicate populations of broad-horned flour-beetles to test for evolutionary effects of sex-specific predation on an exaggerated sexually selected male trait, while also testing for effects on female lifetime reproductive success. We found that populations subjected to male-specific predation evolved smaller sexually selected traits and this indirectly increased female fitness, seemingly through intersexual genetic correlations we documented. Predation solely on females had no effects. Our findings support fundamental theory, but also reveal novel outcomes when natural selection targets sex-limited sexually selected characters.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.