Data from: Genetic variation in host plants influences the mate preferences of a plant-feeding insect

Many species spend their lives in close association with other organisms, and the environments provided by those organisms can play an important role as causes of variation in phenotypes. When this is the case, the genotypes of the individuals constituting the environment may influence the phenotypes of individuals living in that environment. When these effects are between heterospecifics, interspecific indirect genetic effects (IIGEs) occur. Several studies have detected IIGEs, but whether IIGEs contribute to variation in sexually selected traits remains virtually unexplored. We assessed how mate preferences in a plant-feeding insect are influenced by the genotype of their host plant. We established clone lines of a sample of host plant genotypes constituting the background biotic environment for a random sample of insects that we reared on them. We found that the insects’ mate preferences varied according to the clone line on which they developed. These results demonstrate that genetic variation in host plants has cross-trophic consequences on a trait that has strong effects on fitness and interpopulation dynamics such as diversification in communication systems. We discuss how IIGEs on mate preferences may influence the way in which selection acts, including the maintenance of variation and the promotion of evolutionary divergence.

诸多物种终其一生都与其他生物保持紧密关联，而这些生物所提供的栖息环境，可作为表型变异的重要驱动因素。在此情境下，构成该环境的生物个体的基因型，可能会影响栖息于该环境中的其他个体的表型。当这类效应发生在异种生物之间时，便会产生种间间接遗传效应（interspecific indirect genetic effects, IIGEs）。目前已有多项研究证实了IIGEs的存在，但IIGEs是否会对性选择性状的变异产生贡献，几乎尚未得到探索。本研究针对一种植食性昆虫的配偶偏好如何受其宿主植物的基因型影响展开了探究：我们选取若干宿主植物基因型构建克隆系，将其作为随机抽样的受试昆虫的背景生物环境，并让昆虫在这些克隆系上完成繁育。结果发现，昆虫的配偶偏好会随着其发育所处的植物克隆系不同而发生显著变化。本研究结果表明，宿主植物的遗传变异会对某一性状产生跨营养级的效应——该性状对生物适合度以及种群间动态（如通讯系统的多样化）均具有显著影响。我们还讨论了针对配偶偏好的IIGEs可能如何影响选择作用的模式，包括维持遗传变异以及推动演化趋异的过程。