Measuring Pre- and Post-Copulatory Sexual Selection and Their Interaction in Socially Monogamous Species with Extra-Pair Paternity.

ABSTRACT: When females copulate with multiple males, pre- and post-copulatory sexual selection may interact synergistically or in opposition. Studying this interaction in wild populations is complex and potentially biased, because copulation and fertilization success are often inferred from offspring parentage rather than being directly measured. Here, I simulated 15 species of socially monogamous birds with varying levels of extra-pair paternity, where I could independently cause a male secondary sexual trait to improve copulation success, and a sperm trait to improve fertilization success. By varying the degree of correlation between the male and sperm traits, I show that several common statistical approaches, including univariate selection gradients and paired t-tests comparing extra-pair males t

SUBMITTER: Cramer ERA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7999480 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature