The evolution of sperm competition genes: The effect of mating system on levels of genetic variation within and between species.

ABSTRACT: It is widely established that proteins involved in reproduction diverge between species more quickly than other proteins. For male sperm proteins, rapid divergence is believed to be caused by postcopulatory sexual selection and/or sexual conflict. Here, we derive the expected levels of gene diversity within populations and divergence between them for male sperm protein genes evolving by postcopulatory, prezygotic fertility competition, i.e. the function imputed for some sperm and seminal fluid genes. We find that, at the mutation-selection equilibrium, both gene diversity within species and divergence between them are elevated relative to genes with similar selection coefficients expressed by both sexes. We show that their expected level of diversity is a function of the harmonic mean numb

SUBMITTER: Dapper AL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4868060 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature