TY - JOUR
T1 - A female signal reflects MHC genotype in a social primate
AU - Huchard, Elise
AU - Raymond, Michel
AU - Benavides, Julio
AU - Marshall, Harry
AU - Knapp, Leslie A.
AU - Cowlishaw, Guy
N1 - Funding Information:
Many thanks to A. King, H. Kelstrup, L. De Raad, R. Fleming, N. Camara, J. Kamps and H. Peck for invaluable assistance in the field, M. Weill for her assistance in the lab, and A. Courtiol for helpful discussions, especially regarding statistics. We thank four anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback on a previous version of this manuscript. We are also grateful to the Swart family (2000-2006) and the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement (2006) for permission to work at Tsaobis Leopard Park, the Gobabeb Training and Research Centre for affiliation, and the Ministry of Environment and Tourism for research permission in Namibia. We confirm that we have adhered to the Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Behavioural Research and Teaching (Animal Behaviour 2003, 65:249-255) and the legal requirements of the country (Namibia) in which the work was carried out. This work was funded by a Natural Environment Research Council (UK) Advanced Fellowship awarded to GC, a Ministère de l’Education et de la Recherche (France) Studentship, and a Royal Society Travel Grant awarded to both GC and EH. This paper is a publication of the ZSL Institute of Zoology’s Tsaobis Baboon Project. Contribution ISEM 2010-025.
PY - 2010/4/15
Y1 - 2010/4/15
N2 - Background. Males from many species are believed to advertise their genetic quality through striking ornaments that attract mates. Yet the connections between signal expression, body condition and the genes associated with individual quality are rarely elucidated. This is particularly problematic for the signals of females in species with conventional sex roles, whose evolutionary significance has received little attention and is poorly understood. Here we explore these questions in the sexual swellings of female primates, which are among the most conspicuous of mammalian sexual signals and highly variable in size, shape and colour. We investigated the relationships between two components of sexual swellings (size and shape), body condition, and genes of the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) in a wild baboon population (Papio ursinus) where males prefer large swellings. Results. Although there was no effect of MHC diversity on the sexual swelling components, one specific MHC supertype (S1) was associated with poor body condition together with swellings of small size and a particular shape. The variation in swelling characteristics linked with the possession of supertype S1 appeared to be partially mediated by body condition and remained detectable when taking into account the possession of other supertypes. Conclusions. These findings suggest a pathway from immunity genes to sexual signals via physical condition for the first time in females. They further indicate that mechanisms of sexual selection traditionally assigned to males can also operate in females.
AB - Background. Males from many species are believed to advertise their genetic quality through striking ornaments that attract mates. Yet the connections between signal expression, body condition and the genes associated with individual quality are rarely elucidated. This is particularly problematic for the signals of females in species with conventional sex roles, whose evolutionary significance has received little attention and is poorly understood. Here we explore these questions in the sexual swellings of female primates, which are among the most conspicuous of mammalian sexual signals and highly variable in size, shape and colour. We investigated the relationships between two components of sexual swellings (size and shape), body condition, and genes of the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) in a wild baboon population (Papio ursinus) where males prefer large swellings. Results. Although there was no effect of MHC diversity on the sexual swelling components, one specific MHC supertype (S1) was associated with poor body condition together with swellings of small size and a particular shape. The variation in swelling characteristics linked with the possession of supertype S1 appeared to be partially mediated by body condition and remained detectable when taking into account the possession of other supertypes. Conclusions. These findings suggest a pathway from immunity genes to sexual signals via physical condition for the first time in females. They further indicate that mechanisms of sexual selection traditionally assigned to males can also operate in females.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77950667606&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1186/1471-2148-10-96
DO - 10.1186/1471-2148-10-96
M3 - Article
C2 - 20374634
AN - SCOPUS:77950667606
VL - 10
JO - BMC Evolutionary Biology
JF - BMC Evolutionary Biology
SN - 1471-2148
IS - 1
M1 - 96
ER -