Effects of selection for rapid development and early reproduction on male-female co-evolution and conflict in drosophila melanogaste

Abstract

The process of development is central to the realization of the Darwinian fitness of any organism, as it is in this stage of the life of an organism that hereditary factors subjected to selection in the previous generations give rise to the phenotype that is ‘visible’ to natural selection in the current generation. Theory suggests that the ideal life-history would involve almost instantaneous development and infinitely long survival, with a high rate of reproduction throughout (i.e. absence of ageing) (Roff 1992). However, any organism has finite resources and time at its disposal, and the allocation pattern of the same towards survival or reproduction, reflected in its life-history, is expected to be optimized for its ecology, through the process of selection. As ideal life-histories do not exist, these constraints that limit the simultaneous maximization of all fitness related traits remain an important focus of research in the study of biological evolution.