Sexual selection modulates genetic conflicts and patterns of genomic imprinting

Abstract

Recent years have seen a surge of interest in linking the theories of kin selection and sexual selection. In particular, there is a growing appreciation that kin selection, arising through demographic factors such as sex-biased dispersal, may modulate sexual conflicts,including in the context of male-female arms races characterized by coevolutionary cycles.However, evolutionary conflicts of interest need not only occur between individuals, but may also occur within individuals, and sex-specific demography is known to foment such intragenomic conflict in relation to social behavior. Whether and how this logic holds in the context of sexual conflict – and, in particular, in relation to coevolutionary cycles – remains obscure. We develop a kin-selection model to investigate the interests of different genes involved in sexual and intragenomic conflict, and we show that consideration of these conflicting interests yields novel predictions concerning parent-of-origin-specific patterns of gene expression and the detrimental effects of different classes of mutation and epimutation at loci underpinning sexually-selected phenotypes.