Testing for a genetic response to sexual selection in a wild Drosophila population

In accordance with the consensus that sexual selection is responsible for the rapid evolution of display traits on macroevolutionary scales, microevolutionary studies suggest sexual selection is a widespread and often strong form of directional selection in nature. However, empirical evidence for the contemporary evolution of sexually selected traits remains weak. In this study we used a novel application of quantitative genetic breeding designs to test for a genetic response to sexual selection on eight chemical display traits in a field population of the fly, Drosophila serrata. Using our quantitative genetic approach, we were able to detect a genetically-based difference in means between groups of males descended from either successful or random wild males for one of these display traits, the diene (Z,Z)-5,9-C27:2. Our experimental results, in combination with previous lab studies on this system, suggest that both natural selection and sexual selection may be influencing the evolutio...