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Dryad

Sexual selection buffers the negative consequences of population fragmentation on adaptive plastic responses to increasing temperatures

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Nov 01, 2023 version files 208.02 KB

Abstract

Whether sexual selection facilitates or hampers the ability to plastically respond to novel environments might depend on population structure, via its effects on sexual interactions and associated fitness payoffs. Using experimentally evolved lines of the seed beetle Callosobruchus maculatus, we tested whether individuals evolving under different sexual selection (monogamy vs polygamy) and population spatial structure (metapopulation vs undivided populations) treatments differed in their response across developmental thermal conditions (control, hot or stressful) in a range of fitness and fitness-associated traits. We found that individuals from subdivided populations had lower lifetime reproductive success (LRS) at hot temperatures, but only in lines evolving under relaxed sexual selection, revealing a complex interaction between sexual selection, population structure, and thermal environmental stress on fitness. We also found an effect of population structure on several traits, including fertility and adult emergence success, under exposure to high thermal conditions. Finally, we found a strong negative effect of hot and stressful temperatures in fitness and associated traits. Our results show that population structure can exacerbate the impact of a warming climate, potentially leading to declines in population viability, but that sexual selection can buffer the negative influence of population subdivision on adaptation to warm temperatures.