ArticleBMC biology2021
Sexual conflict drives micro- and macroevolution of sexual dimorphism in immunity.
Article in BMC biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 37 citations in OpenAlex.
- The reliability of environmental cues shape learning and selection against deleterious alleles in seed beetles.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Two matings lead to more copulatory wounding than a single mating in femaleProceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Toward understanding sexual immune dimorphism in humans.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Review
- Sex-Specific Dominance of Gene Expression in Seed Beetles.Molecular biology and evolution · 2024Article
- The evolution of ageing: classic theories and emerging ideas.Biogerontology · 2024Review
- No evidence for an up-regulation of female immune function in response to elevated risk of sexual conflict.Biology letters · 2024Article
- Heat stress reveals a fertility debt owing to postcopulatory sexual selection.Evolution letters · 2024Article
- A novel method for identifying key genes in macroevolution based on deep learning with attention mechanism.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Y-Linked Copy Number Polymorphism of Target of Rapamycin Is Associated with Sexual Size Dimorphism in Seed Beetles.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Individual variation in preference behavior in sailfin fish refines the neurotranscriptomic pathway for mate preference.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Increased male investment in sperm competition results in reduced maintenance of gametes.PLoS biology · 2023Article
- Experimental Life History Evolution Results in Sex-specific Evolution of Gene Expression in Seed Beetles.Genome biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Concerted evolution of metabolic rate, economics of mating, ecology, and pace of life across seed beetles.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Drosophila melanogaster hosts coevolving with Pseudomonas entomophila pathogen show sex-specific patterns of local adaptation.BMC ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Experimental sexual selection reveals rapid evolutionary divergence in sex-specific transcriptomes and their interactions following mating.Molecular ecology · 2022Article
- Adaptation to a bacterial pathogen inEcology and evolution · 2022Article
- Review
- Experimental evolution reveals sex-specific dominance for surviving bacterial infection in laboratory populations ofEvolution letters · 2021Article
- Evolution of pathogen tolerance and emerging infections: A missing experimental paradigm.eLife · 2021Review
- Direct and indirect effects of male genital elaboration in female seed beetles.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSexual dimorphism in immunity is believed to reflect sex differences in reproductive strategies and trade-offs between competing life history demands. Sexual selection can have major effects on mating rates and sex-specific costs of mating and may thereby influence sex differences in immunity as well as associated host-pathogen dynamics. Yet, experimental evidence linking the mating system to evolved sexual dimorphism in immunity are scarce and the direct effects of mating rate on immunity are not well established. Here, we use transcriptomic analyses, experimental evolution and phylogenetic comparative methods to study the association between the mating system and sexual dimorphism in immunity in seed beetles, where mating causes internal injuries in females.
resultsWe demonstrate that female phenoloxidase (PO) activity, involved in wound healing and defence against parasitic infections, is elevated relative to males. This difference is accompanied by concomitant sex differences in the expression of genes in the prophenoloxidase activating cascade. We document substantial phenotypic plasticity in female PO activity in response to mating and show that experimental evolution under enforced monogamy (resulting in low remating rates and reduced sexual conflict relative to natural polygamy) rapidly decreases female (but not male) PO activity. Moreover, monogamous females had evolved increased tolerance to bacterial infection unrelated to mating, implying that female responses to costly mating may trade off with other aspects of immune defence, an hypothesis which broadly accords with the documented sex differences in gene expression. Finally, female (but not male) PO activity shows correlated evolution with the perceived harmfulness of male genitalia across 12 species of seed beetles, suggesting that sexual conflict has a significant influence on sexual dimorphisms in immunity in this group of insects.
conclusionsOur study provides insights into the links between sexual conflict and sexual dimorphism in immunity and suggests that selection pressures moulded by mating interactions can lead to a sex-specific mosaic of immune responses with important implications for host-pathogen dynamics in sexually reproducing organisms.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.