Data from: Cross-sex genetic correlations and the evolution of sex-specific local adaptation: insights from classical trait clines in Drosophila melanogaster

Natural selection varies widely among locations of a species’ range,
favouring population divergence and adaptation to local environmental
conditions. Selection also differs between females and males, favouring
the evolution of sexual dimorphism. Both forms of within-species
evolutionary diversification are widely studied, though largely in
isolation, and it remains unclear whether environmental variability
typically generates similar or distinct patterns of selection on each sex.
Studies of sex-specific local adaptation are also challenging because they
must account for genetic correlations between female and male traits,
which may lead to correlated patterns of trait divergence between sexes,
whether or not local selection patterns are aligned or differ between the
sexes. We quantified sex-specific divergence in five clinally variable
traits in Drosophila melanogaster that individually vary in their
magnitude of cross-sex genetic correlation (i.e., from moderate to
strongly positive). In all five traits, we observed parallel male and
female clines, regardless of the magnitude of their genetic correlation.
These patterns imply that parallel spatial divergence of female and male
traits is a reflection of sexually concordant directional selection
imposed by local environmental conditions. In such contexts, genetic
correlations between the sexes promote, rather than constrain, local
adaptation to a spatially variable environment.