ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2014
Sexual selection and the evolutionary dynamics of the major histocompatibility complex.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 60 citations in OpenAlex.
- No evidence for disassortative mating based on HLA in a small-scale, endogamous population.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Sex-Dependent Influence of Major Histocompatibility Complex Diversity on Fitness in a Social Mammal.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- MHC Diversity Across Time and Space.Ecology and evolution · 2025Review
- Polymorphism and the Red Queen: the selective maintenance of allelic variation in a deteriorating environment.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2024Article
- Understanding the evolution of immune genes in jawed vertebrates.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2023Review
- Evolution of MHC IIB Diversity Across Cichlid Fish Radiations.Genome biology and evolution · 2023Review
- High MHC diversity confers no advantage for phenotypic quality and reproductive performance in a wild bird.The Journal of animal ecology · 2022Article
- Genomic associations with poxvirus across divergent island populations in Berthelot's pipit.Molecular ecology · 2022Article
- Functional immunogenetic variation, rather than local adaptation, predicts ectoparasite infection intensity in a model fish species.Molecular ecology · 2021Article
- The strength of selection is consistent across both domains of the MHC class I peptide-binding groove in birds.BMC ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Within-trio tests provide little support for post-copulatory selection on major histocompatibility complex haplotypes in a free-living population.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Genetic drift and bottleneck do not influence diversity in Toll-like receptor genes at a small spatial scale in a Himalayan passerine.Ecology and evolution · 2020Article
- Mating preferences can drive expansion or contraction of major histocompatibility complex gene family.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Multiplicative fitness, rapid haplotype discovery, and fitness decay explain evolution of human MHC.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Article
- Vive la difference! Self/non-self recognition and the evolution of signatures of identity in arms races with parasites.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Review
- Article
- Specific MHC class I supertype associated with parasite infection and color morph in a wild lizard population.Ecology and evolution · 2018Article
- MHC diversity and female age underpin reproductive success in an Australian icon; the Tasmanian Devil.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- Immunogenetic novelty confers a selective advantage in host-pathogen coevolution.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) are a key component of the adaptive immune system and among the most variable loci in the vertebrate genome. Pathogen-mediated natural selection and MHC-based disassortative mating are both thought to structure MHC polymorphism, but their effects have proven difficult to discriminate in natural systems. Using the first model of MHC dynamics incorporating both survival and reproduction, we demonstrate that natural and sexual selection produce distinctive signatures of MHC allelic diversity with critical implications for understanding host-pathogen dynamics. While natural selection produces the Red Queen dynamics characteristic of host-parasite interactions, disassortative mating stabilizes allele frequencies, damping major fluctuations in dominant alleles and protecting functional variants against drift. This subtle difference generates a complex interaction between MHC allelic diversity and population size. In small populations, the stabilizing effects of sexual selection moderate the effects of drift, whereas pathogen-mediated selection accelerates the loss of functionally important genetic diversity. Natural selection enhances MHC allelic variation in larger populations, with the highest levels of diversity generated by the combined action of pathogen-mediated selection and disassortative mating. MHC-based sexual selection may help to explain how functionally important genetic variation can be maintained in populations of conservation concern.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.