Data from: The evolutionary genetics of acquisition and allocation in the wing dimorphic cricket, Gryllus firmus.

The evolutionary trajectories of trade-offs are ultimately governed by the evolution of the underlying physiological processes of the acquisition and subsequent allocation of resources. In this study, we focused directly on acquisition and allocation as traits and estimated their genetic architecture in the trade-off between flight capability and reproduction in the cricket, Gryllus firmus. To determine the evolutionary genetics of acquisition and allocation both within and between resource environments we performed a large-scale quantitative genetic breeding experiment in which families were split over several resource levels. Our findings were fourfold: 1) there was substantial genetic variance in acquisition and allocation; 2) contrary to the assumption of independence between acquisition and allocation, there was a significant genetic correlation between them; 3) the genetic covariance between acquisition and allocation was significantly different in the different food environments, 4) the trade-off, as measured by the genetic correlation between flight muscle mass and ovary mass, was only significant in the food restriction environments. However, when measured directly as the genetic correlation between reproductive allocation and flight allocation, we found a consistent strong negative genetic correlation, demonstrating that when allocation is measured independently of acquisition we find evidence for the trade-off.

权衡的进化轨迹最终由资源获取与后续分配相关的潜在生理过程的演化所调控。本研究直接以资源获取与分配作为研究性状，并以原野蟋蟀（Gryllus firmus）为实验对象，解析其飞行能力与繁殖间权衡关系下的遗传结构。为探明资源环境内部及跨资源环境的资源获取与分配的进化遗传学规律，本研究开展了大规模数量遗传育种实验，将实验家系划分至多个资源水平梯度下。本研究共得到四项核心发现：其一，资源获取与分配均存在可观的遗传变异；其二，与“资源获取与分配相互独立”的既有假设相悖，二者间存在显著的遗传相关；其三，不同食物环境下资源获取与分配的遗传协方差存在显著差异；其四，以飞行肌重量与卵巢重量间的遗传相关衡量的权衡效应，仅在食物限制环境下才具有统计学显著性。然而，若直接以繁殖分配与飞行分配间的遗传相关来衡量权衡关系，则可观测到一致且强烈的负遗传相关，这表明当分配与获取相互独立测算时，可获得该权衡效应存在的实验证据。