Experimental evolution reveals sex-specific dominance for surviving bacterial infection in laboratory populations of Drosophila melanogaster

Males and females are subjected to distinct kinds of selection pressures, often leading to the evolution of sex-specific genetic architecture, an example being sex-specific dominance. Sex-specific dominance reversals (SSDRs), where alleles at sexually antagonistic loci are at least partially dominant in the sex they benefit, have been documented in Atlantic salmon, rainbow trout and beetles. Another interesting feature of many sexually reproducing organisms is the asymmetric inheritance pattern of X chromosomes, which often leads to distinct evolutionary outcomes on X chromosomes compared to autosomes. Examples include, the higher efficacy of sexually concordant selection on X chromosomes, and X chromosomes being more conducive to the maintenance of sexually antagonistic polymorphisms under certain conditions. Immunocompetence is a trait that has been extensively investigated for sexual dimorphism with growing evidence for sex-specific or sexually antagonistic variation. X chromosomes h...