Kin discrimination and demography modulate patterns of sexual conflict
Abstract
Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in the overlap between kin selection and sexual selection, particularly concerning how kin selection can put the brakes on harmful sexual conflict. However, there remains a significant disconnect between theory and empirical research. Whilst empirical work has focused on kin-discriminating behaviour, theoretical models have assumed indiscriminating behaviour. Additionally, theoretical work makes particular demographic assumptions that constrain the relationship between genetic relatedness and the scale of competition, and it is not clear that these assumptions reflect the natural setting in which sexual conflict has been empirically studied. Here, we plug this gap between current theoretical and empirical understanding by developing a mathematical model of sexual conflict that incorporates kin discrimination and different patterns of dispersal. We find that kin discrimination and group dispersal inhibit harmful male behaviours at an individual level, but kin discrimination intensifies sexual conflict at the population level.
Citation
Faria , G , Gardner , A & Carazo , P 2020 , ' Kin discrimination and demography modulate patterns of sexual conflict ' , Nature Ecology and Evolution , vol. First Online . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1214-6
Publication
Nature Ecology and Evolution
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2397-334XType
Journal article
Description
Funding: UK Natural Environment Research Council Independent Research Fellowship (NE/K009524/1) and a European Research Council Consolidator Grant (771387) (AG).Collections
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