Publication
Title
Parentage analyses suggest female promiscuity and a disadvantage for athletic males in the colour-polymorphic lizard **Podarcis melisellensis**
Author
Abstract
Although laboratory measurements of whole-animal performance have become a standard tool in evolutionary biology, if and how interindividual variation in performance translates into differential fitness remains poorly understood. Particularly rare are studies that have connected performance to mating and reproductive success in the field. In this study, we use DNA microsatellite parentage analyses to study the fitness gradient in a colour-polymorphic lizard, Podarcis melisellensis. We report on two surprising findings. First, contrary to our expectations, individual sprint speed and bite force capacity correlated negatively, not positively, with male mating and reproductive success. Second, we found an unexpected degree of promiscuity in females. Also, contrary to traditional parental investment theory, the variation in mating success and reproductive success was as high in females as in males. Our results call for a better integration of whole-animal performance and life history traits, and for a reconsideration of the ideas on the likeliness of sexual selection acting on female phenotypes.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Behavioral ecology and sociobiology. - Berlin, 1976, currens
Publication
Berlin : 2014
ISSN
0340-5443 [print]
1432-0762 [online]
DOI
10.1007/S00265-014-1746-3
Volume/pages
68 :8 (2014) , p. 1357-1366
ISI
000339728500014
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Project info
Molecular and functional bases of insular melanism in lacertid lizards.
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 08.09.2014
Last edited 09.10.2023
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