美国哈佛大学Pavitra Muralidhar的最新研究提出了自私性染色体的交配偏好。 相关论文于2019年6月20日发表在《自然》杂志上。

女性对有害男性特征的交配偏好的进化是性别选择的核心悖论。对这一矛盾现象有两种主要解释，一种是“fisher逃跑过程”(基于偏好和性状之间的遗传相关性)，另一种是“Zahavis障碍原理”(该原理认为性状是男性品质的一个诚实而昂贵的信号)。然而，这两种解释成立的前提是：在有害的男性特征进化之前，女性偏好就已经外源性地初始传播。

研究提出了一种基于性染色体的自私进化利益的机制，来解释女性对有害男性特征的交配偏好的进化。Pavitra Muralidhar证明，女性偏向的遗传因素，如W和X性染色体的进化更倾向于对表现出使男性适应性降低（或者使后代中男性适应性降低），但能使后代女性适应性提高的男性交配。尤其是，与w相关的偏好会导致几乎致命的男性特征被彻底固定。与性别相关的偏好可以驱动诸如装饰性缺陷和雄性亲代照料等性状的进化，并且可以用不同的性别决定机制解释不同类群的装饰和行为的差异。

附：英文原文

Title: Mating preferences of selfish sex chromosomes

Author: Pavitra Muralidhar

Issue&Volume: Volume 570 Issue 7761, 20 June 2019

Abstract: The evolution of female mating preferences for harmful male traits is a central paradox of sexual selection. Two dominant explanations for this paradox are Fishers runaway process, which is based on genetic correlations between preference and trait, and Zahavis handicap principle, in which the trait is an honest costly signal of male quality. However, both of these explanations require the exogenous initial spread of female preferences before harmful male traits can evolve. Here I present a mechanism for the evolution of female mating preferences for harmful male traits that is based on the selfish evolutionary interests of sex chromosomes. I demonstrate that female-biased genetic elementssuch as the W and X sex chromosomeswill evolve mating preferences for males who display traits that reduce their fitness and/or that of their male offspring, but increase fitness in female offspring. In particular, W-linked preferences can cause nearly lethal male traits to sweep to fixation. Sex-linked preferences can drive the evolution of traits such as ornamental handicaps and male parental care, and can explain variation in ornamentation and behaviour across taxa with divergent sex-determining mechanisms.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1271-7

Source:https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1271-7