Submission Type
Poster
Abstract
Sexual selection, or the process that favors traits for acquiring mates, is a powerful mechanism driving sexual trait variation like vivid fish colors, melodic cricket songs, and elaborate jumping spider dances. Sexual selection can also drive divergence between populations and speciation, generating an immense diversity of species. Flies in the Rhagoletis genus exhibit different coloration, size, behavior, and most conspicuously, wing patterns between species. These traits are employed when flies communicate with each other, including during mating interactions, and yet the role of sexual selection in trait variation has been sorely understudied. I conducted mating trials and morphological analysis to test how candidate traits (size, color, wing pattern, wing-waving behavior) predict mating success (latency to copulation, copulation duration). Here, I will share preliminary results for hawthorn-infesting flies, R. pomonella, and discuss the evolutionary implications of sexual signaling in this genus.
Included in
The contribution of sexual selection to trait divergence in Rhagoletis flies
Sexual selection, or the process that favors traits for acquiring mates, is a powerful mechanism driving sexual trait variation like vivid fish colors, melodic cricket songs, and elaborate jumping spider dances. Sexual selection can also drive divergence between populations and speciation, generating an immense diversity of species. Flies in the Rhagoletis genus exhibit different coloration, size, behavior, and most conspicuously, wing patterns between species. These traits are employed when flies communicate with each other, including during mating interactions, and yet the role of sexual selection in trait variation has been sorely understudied. I conducted mating trials and morphological analysis to test how candidate traits (size, color, wing pattern, wing-waving behavior) predict mating success (latency to copulation, copulation duration). Here, I will share preliminary results for hawthorn-infesting flies, R. pomonella, and discuss the evolutionary implications of sexual signaling in this genus.
Comments
Rowan Ward, University of Louisville; Alycia Lackey, University of Louisville