Data from: The mutational decay of male-male and hermaphrodite-hermaphrodite competitive fitness in the androdioecious nematode C. elegans

Androdioecious Caenorhabditis have a high frequency of self-compatible
hermaphrodites and a low frequency of males. The effects of mutations on
male fitness are of interest for two reasons. First, when males are rare,
selection on male-specific mutations is less efficient than in
hermaphrodites. Second, males may present a larger mutational target than
hermaphrodites because of the different ways in which fitness accrues in
the two sexes. We report the first estimates of male-specific mutational
effects in an androdioecious organism. The rate of male-specific inviable
or sterile mutations is ≤ 5 x 10-4/generation, below the rate at which
males would be lost solely due to those kinds of mutations. The rate of
mutational decay of male competitive fitness is ~0.17%/generation; that of
hermaphrodite competitive fitness is ~0.11%/generation. The point estimate
of ~1.5X faster rate of mutational decay of male fitness is nearly
identical to the same ratio in Drosophila. Estimates of mutational
variance (VM) for male mating success and competitive fitness are not
significantly different from zero, whereas VM for hermaphrodite
competitive fitness is similar to that of non-competitive fitness. Two
independent estimates of the average selection coefficient against
mutations affecting hermaphrodite competitive fitness agree to within
two-fold, 0.33%-0.5%.