Environmental conditions during development affect sexual selection through trait-fitness relationships

Sexual selection can be shaped by spatial variation in environmental features among populations. Differences in sexual selection among populations generated through the effects of the environment could be shaped via four paths: differences in mean absolute fitness, differences in the means or variances of phenotypes, or differences in the absolute fitness-trait function relationship. Because sexual selection only occurs during the adult life stage, most studies have focused on identifying environmental features that influence these metrics of fitness and trait distributions among adults. However, these adult features could also be affected by environmental factors experienced in early life stages that then shape the trajectory for sexual selection during the adult life stage. Here we investigated how among-population variation in environmental conditions during the juvenile (larval) stage of two species of Enallagma damselflies shapes sexual selection on male body size. We found that en...

性选择（Sexual selection）可由种群间环境特征的空间变异所塑造。环境效应导致的种群间性选择差异可通过四条路径形成：平均绝对适合度（absolute fitness）的差异、表型（phenotypes）的均值或方差差异，以及绝对适合度-性状函数关系的差异。由于性选择仅发生于成体阶段，多数研究聚焦于识别影响成体适合度指标及性状分布的环境特征。然而，这些成体特征亦可能受早期生活阶段所经历的环境因素影响，进而塑造成体阶段性选择的轨迹。本研究探讨了两种Enallagma属豆娘（damselflies）幼体（幼虫期）环境条件的种群间变异如何塑造雄性体型的性选择。我们发现……