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Meiotic drive doesn't cause condition-dependent reduction of the sexual ornament in stalk-eyed flies
4 June 2021
Reduced eyespan likely reflects compensatory resource allocation to different traits in response to drive-mediated destruction of sperm.
Using the 鈥�sex-ratio鈥� (SR) meiotic drive system of the Malaysian stalk-eyed fly听Teleopsis听dalmanni,听eyespan in males carrying the SR chromosome was studied, as this trait is a highly exaggerated, sexually dimorphic trait, known to have heightened condition-dependent expression. Results do not support the hypothesis that reduced sexual ornament size in meiotic drive males is due to a condition-dependent response to the putative increase in mutation load.