On the Emergence of Intersexual Selection: Arbitrary Trait Preference Improves Female-Male Coevolution

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Larry Bull
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Fitness Landscape ◽  
Fundamental Aspect ◽  
Mating Types ◽  
Selection Mechanism ◽  
Trait Preference ◽  
Landscape Size ◽  
Eukaryotic Organisms

Abstract Sexual selection is a fundamental aspect of evolution for all eukaryotic organisms with mating types. This article suggests intersexual selection is best viewed as a mechanism with which to compensate for the unavoidable dynamics of coevolution between sexes that emerge with isogamy. Using the NKCS model it is shown by varying fitness landscape size, ruggedness, and connectedness, how a purely arbitrary trait preference sexual selection mechanism proves beneficial with high dependence between the sexes. This is found to be the case whether one or both sexes exploit such intersexual selection.

scholarly journals The dilemma of Fisherian sexual selection: Mate choice for indirect benefits despite rarity and overall weakness of trait-preference genetic correlation

Evolution ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 68 (12) ◽  
pp. 3524-3536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Greenfield ◽  
Sylvain Alem ◽  
Denis Limousin ◽  
Nathan W. Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Mate Choice ◽  
Genetic Correlation ◽  
Indirect Benefits ◽  
Trait Preference

Intimate Ark

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Culliney ◽  
David Jones
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Genetic Recombination ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Mating Pair ◽  
Genetic Contribution ◽  
Substantial Portion ◽  
Genetic Makeup ◽  
Eukaryotic Organisms ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Gene Sharing

Among the greatest cooperative examples of biotic evolution that released a virtually unbounded world of complexity, particularly conspicuous among eukaryotic organisms, was the evolution of sex. In sex, each individual of a mating pair contributes part of its genetic makeup (genome) to offspring—always cells are the seminal agents of the genetic contribution from each self—that participate in an emergent new generation. Thus a self, upon engaging in sex, abandons a substantial portion of its integrity and weaves together a molecular-to-cellular-to-organismal fractal interface with a partner. Throughout the sexual world, self seeks a profound intimacy with non-self. The chapter first describes gene sharing by bacteria through conjugation, a prokaryotic version of sex. An allegory of dancing snakes metaphorically represents cellular reproduction by mitosis and the reduction divisions of chromosomes in meiosis, the basis of gene sharing in sex among eukaryotes. Genetic recombination via meiosis enormously accelerates the diverse expressions of myriad life forms. Among angiosperm plants, sex is manifest in immensely variable flowers and, with some exceptions, their colors and forms evolved in response to a profound cooperative imperative with animal partners that spread their pollen. Darwin’s major insight on sexual selection among animals has explained male-female dimorphisms from subtle to spectacular.

scholarly journals Origin of life in a digital microcosm

2017 ◽  
Vol 375 (2109) ◽  
pp. 20160350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nitash C G ◽  
Thomas LaBar ◽  
Arend Hintze ◽  
Christoph Adami
Keyword(s):  
Origin Of Life ◽  
Fitness Landscape ◽  
Small Region ◽  
Fundamental Aspect ◽  
Recent Common Ancestor ◽  
Evolution System ◽  
Common Descent ◽  
Most Recent Common Ancestor ◽  
Multiple Origins ◽  
Computational Systems

While all organisms on Earth share a common descent, there is no consensus on whether the origin of the ancestral self-replicator was a one-off event or whether it only represented the final survivor of multiple origins. Here, we use the digital evolution system Avida to study the origin of self-replicating computer programs. By using a computational system, we avoid many of the uncertainties inherent in any biochemical system of self-replicators (while running the risk of ignoring a fundamental aspect of biochemistry). We generated the exhaustive set of minimal-genome self-replicators and analysed the network structure of this fitness landscape. We further examined the evolvability of these self-replicators and found that the evolvability of a self-replicator is dependent on its genomic architecture. We also studied the differential ability of replicators to take over the population when competed against each other, akin to a primordial-soup model of biogenesis, and found that the probability of a self-replicator outcompeting the others is not uniform. Instead, progenitor (most-recent common ancestor) genotypes are clustered in a small region of the replicator space. Our results demonstrate how computational systems can be used as test systems for hypotheses concerning the origin of life. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Reconceptualizing the origins of life’.

scholarly journals The problem of measuring trait-preference correlations without disrupting them

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 1518-1521 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J Hosken ◽  
Alastair J Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Mate Choice ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
Genetic Correlations ◽  
Female Preference ◽  
Experimental Designs ◽  
Evolutionary Trajectory ◽  
Male Trait ◽  
Trait Preference ◽  
Kirkpatrick Model

Abstract A key element at the heart of the Fisher–Lande–Kirkpatrick model of the sexual selection process is the genetic correlation between (male) trait and (female) preference. The strength of this association is critical in determining a population’s evolutionary trajectory, which is why estimating its magnitude is so important. In the Lande model, the trait-preference correlation is solely established and maintained by mate choice, and although it is unclear how exclusively mate choice does this in nature, the experimental designs typically employed to measure trait-preference genetic correlations could be systematically weakening estimates by not allowing free mate choice (similarly with husbandry practices). The precise impact of the problem is unknown, and possibly unknowable, but simple solutions can be applied to ensure the accuracy of trait-preference correlation estimates is maximized.

E3 ubiquitin ligases

2005 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 15-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen C. Ardley ◽  
Philip A. Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Protein Complexes ◽  
Loss Of Function ◽  
Direct Role ◽  
Cellular Processes ◽  
Substrate Protein ◽  
Protein Ubiquitination ◽  
C Terminus ◽  
Full Complement ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Eukaryotic Organisms

The selectivity of the ubiquitin–26 S proteasome system (UPS) for a particular substrate protein relies on the interaction between a ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme (E2, of which a cell contains relatively few) and a ubiquitin–protein ligase (E3, of which there are possibly hundreds). Post-translational modifications of the protein substrate, such as phosphorylation or hydroxylation, are often required prior to its selection. In this way, the precise spatio-temporal targeting and degradation of a given substrate can be achieved. The E3s are a large, diverse group of proteins, characterized by one of several defining motifs. These include a HECT (homologous to E6-associated protein C-terminus), RING (really interesting new gene) or U-box (a modified RING motif without the full complement of Zn2+-binding ligands) domain. Whereas HECT E3s have a direct role in catalysis during ubiquitination, RING and U-box E3s facilitate protein ubiquitination. These latter two E3 types act as adaptor-like molecules. They bring an E2 and a substrate into sufficiently close proximity to promote the substrate's ubiquitination. Although many RING-type E3s, such as MDM2 (murine double minute clone 2 oncoprotein) and c-Cbl, can apparently act alone, others are found as components of much larger multi-protein complexes, such as the anaphase-promoting complex. Taken together, these multifaceted properties and interactions enable E3s to provide a powerful, and specific, mechanism for protein clearance within all cells of eukaryotic organisms. The importance of E3s is highlighted by the number of normal cellular processes they regulate, and the number of diseases associated with their loss of function or inappropriate targeting.

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