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Good genes, oxidative stress and condition-dependent sexual signals

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Author

Summary, in English

The immune and the detoxication systems of animals are characterized by allelic polymorphisms, which underlie individual differences in ability to combat assaults from pathogens and toxic compounds. Previous studies have shown that females may improve offspring survival by selecting mates on the basis of sexual ornaments and signals that honestly reveal health. In many cases the expression of these ornaments appears to be particularly sensitive to oxidative stress. Activated immune and detoxication systems often generate oxidative stress by an extensive production of reactive metabolites and free radicals. Given that tolerance or resistance to toxic compounds and pathogens can be inherited, female choice should promote the evolution of male ornaments that reliably reveal the status of the bearers' level of oxidative stress. Hence, oxidative stress may be one important agent linking the expression of sexual ornaments to genetic variation in fitness-related traits, thus promoting the evolution of female mate choice and male sexual ornamentation, a controversial issue in evolutionary biology ever since Darwin.

Publishing year

1999

Language

English

Pages

1-12

Publication/Series

Royal Society of London. Proceedings B. Biological Sciences

Volume

266

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Royal Society Publishing

Topic

  • Biological Sciences

Keywords

  • drosophila-melanogaster
  • oxidative stress
  • allelic variation
  • major histocompatibility complex
  • sexual ornaments
  • great reed warbler
  • low-density-lipoprotein
  • complex
  • major histocompatibility
  • fragment-length-polymorphisms
  • s-transferase-theta
  • hyaluronic-acid
  • song repertoire
  • detoxication
  • alcohol-dehydrogenase
  • food-storing bird

Status

Published

Project

  • Immunoecology

Research group

  • Molecular Ecology and Evolution Lab

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1471-2954