Selection on gamete recognition proteins depends on sex, density, and genotype frequency.

Supporting Online Material for Selection on Gamete Recognition Proteins Depends on Sex, Density, and Genotype Frequency

Simultaneous positive and negative frequency-dependent selection on sperm bindin, a gamete recognition protein in the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus.

Gamete-recognition proteins often, but not always, evolve rapidly. We explored how variation in sperm bindin influences reproductive success of the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus during group spawning in the sea. Despite large variation in male and female abundance and neighbor distances, males with common genotypes had higher reproductive success than males with rare genotypes. Howev...

Contemporary evolution of sea urchin gamete-recognition proteins: experimental evidence of density-dependent gamete performance predicts shifts in allele frequencies over time.

Species whose reproductive strategies evolved at one density regime might be poorly adapted to other regimes. Field and laboratory experiments on the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus franciscanus examined the influences of the two most common sperm-bindin alleles, which differ at two amino acid sites, on fertilization success. In the field experiment, the arginine/glycine (RG) genotype performed b...

Sexual selection at the protein level drives the extraordinary divergence of sex-related genes during sympatric speciation.

An increasing number of molecular studies are indicating that, in a wide variety of species, genes directly related to fertilization evolve at extraordinarily high rates. We try to gain insight into the dynamics of this rapid evolution and its underlying mechanisms by means of a simple theoretical model. In the model, sexual selection and sympatric speciation act together in order to drive rapi...

Darwin and human reproduction: a long way to gynaecology

the following 9 chapters summarize the most essential steps that through evolution led to the reproductive behaviour of humans. Hence, the text is not necessarily confined to our species. it is a brief personal view, written as background information for reproductive specialists and gynaecologists. the objective is to give a rough sketch of the evolutionary framework in which some current repro...