Why is measuring and predicting fitness under genomic conflict so hard?

Jessica K Abbott; Katrine K Lund-Hansen; Colin Olito

doi:10.1016/j.gde.2023.102070

Why is measuring and predicting fitness under genomic conflict so hard?

Curr Opin Genet Dev. 2023 Aug:81:102070. doi: 10.1016/j.gde.2023.102070. Epub 2023 Jun 25.

Authors

Jessica K Abbott¹, Katrine K Lund-Hansen², Colin Olito³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biology, Lund University, Sölvegatan 37, 223 62 Lund, Sweden. Electronic address: jessica.abbott@biol.lu.se.
² Department of Biology, Lund University, Sölvegatan 37, 223 62 Lund, Sweden. Electronic address: https://twitter.com/@KLundHansen.
³ Department of Biology, Lund University, Sölvegatan 37, 223 62 Lund, Sweden.

PMID: 37369170
DOI: 10.1016/j.gde.2023.102070

Abstract

Genomic conflict between the sexes is caused by differences in the optimal male and female reproductive strategies, and is a major contributor to genetic, phenotypic, and life history variation. While early experimental work appeared to strongly support the sexual conflict paradigm, recent work has produced more ambiguous results. Recent advances in experimental evolution studies combined with theoretical arguments can shed light on why measuring fitness under a conflict is so challenging, including the incidental alteration of mating dynamics, demographic effects, and inherent complexity in what quantity selection maximizes. We stress that non-intuitive results do not necessarily mean the absence of conflict, and follow-up experiments to determine why a priori predictions failed can ultimately teach us more than if they had been confirmed.

Publication types

Review