Female assortative mate choice functionally validates synthesized male odours of evolving stickleback river-lake ecotypes.

ABSTRACT: During mate choice decisions, females of many vertebrates use male olfactory cues to achieve immunogenetic optimality of their offspring. Three-spined sticklebacks ( Gasterosteus aculeatus) populating habitats that differ in their parasite communities evolve locally adapted combinations of genetic variants encoded at the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). Such adaptation confers optimal resistance to the local parasite fauna. Immunogenetic signatures co-evolved with local parasites favour population-specific assortative mate choice behaviour. Previous studies have shown that female sticklebacks evaluate male MHC-associated olfactory cues during the process of mate choice, but how habitat-specific information is exchanged between males and females has remained elusive. Here, we directl

SUBMITTER: Gahr CL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6303515 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature