Sexual conflict, directional sexual selection and phenotypic plasticity jointly drive the evolution of extreme phenotypic variation
Abstract
How broad phenotypic variation is maintained in natural populations in the face of selection is a central question in evolutionary biology. We address this question in the water strider Microvelia longipes, where males exhibit striking variation in rear leg length used in male-male contests for dominance. Using reaction norm experiments on inbred lines, we demonstrate that phenotypic plasticity contributes to expanding phenotypic variation, but requires high genetic variation to generate the broad range of trait expression observed in natural populations. Experimental evolution favouring trait exaggeration revealed that directional sexual selection not only fails to erode variation of male rear leg length, but rather amplifies it beyond the natural distribution. Additionally, male-limited selection in favour of dominance generated substantial fecundity costs in females, underscoring the role of sexual conflict driven by females in constraining exaggerated secondary sexual traits in males. Our findings show that sexually antagonistic selection and directional sexual selection jointly generate high genetic variation, which phenotypic plasticity inflates into broad phenotypic distribution of male weapon size. This provides an empirical explanation for the high variability of male exaggerated weapons in nature.
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BibTeX
@misc{pruvot2026sexual,
title = {{Sexual conflict, directional sexual selection and phenotypic plasticity jointly drive the evolution of extreme phenotypic variation}},
author = {Claudia Pruvôt and Arnaud Badiane and Ingrid Dourlens and Mariama Dramé and Juliette Mendes and Mirjam Urb and Romain Vedie and Severine Viala and Cristinia Vieira and Patricia Gibert and Abderrahman Khila},
howpublished = {HAL},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.64898/2026.08.18.745420},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05825986v1},
note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Sexual conflict, directional sexual selection and phenotypic plasticity jointly drive the evolution of extreme phenotypic variation
AU - Claudia Pruvôt
AU - Arnaud Badiane
AU - Ingrid Dourlens
AU - Mariama Dramé
AU - Juliette Mendes
AU - Mirjam Urb
AU - Romain Vedie
AU - Severine Viala
AU - Cristinia Vieira
AU - Patricia Gibert
AU - Abderrahman Khila
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/22
PB - HAL
DO - 10.64898/2026.08.18.745420
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05825986v1
AB - How broad phenotypic variation is maintained in natural populations in the face of selection is a central question in evolutionary biology. We address this question in the water strider Microvelia longipes, where males exhibit striking variation in rear leg length used in male-male contests for dominance. Using reaction norm experiments on inbred lines, we demonstrate that phenotypic plasticity contributes to expanding phenotypic variation, but requires high genetic variation to generate the broad range of trait expression observed in natural populations. Experimental evolution favouring trait exaggeration revealed that directional sexual selection not only fails to erode variation of male rear leg length, but rather amplifies it beyond the natural distribution. Additionally, male-limited selection in favour of dominance generated substantial fecundity costs in females, underscoring the role of sexual conflict driven by females in constraining exaggerated secondary sexual traits in males. Our findings show that sexually antagonistic selection and directional sexual selection jointly generate high genetic variation, which phenotypic plasticity inflates into broad phenotypic distribution of male weapon size. This provides an empirical explanation for the high variability of male exaggerated weapons in nature.
ER -