Abstract:
In Drosophila, females are generally known to be promiscuous. Several studies
suggest that the phenomenon of polyandry has a selection advantage caused by
stress conditions induced by sex-linked meiotic drive and other selfish sex ratiodistorting
elements during evolution. In contrast, females are known to recognize
and mate with conspecific males from amongst members of different species and
races. In this study, assuming a genetic basis for mate preference, using selection
studies, we tried to amplify the percentage of monandrous females and establish
two separate lines of females that chose to remate with the same male and those
that do not. We selected the females which did, or did not, prefer to mate with
the same male, for two generations. We then allowed these selected females to
inbreed for three more generations and found that though there was an increase
in the frequency (from 0.35 to 0.55) of females choosing to remate with the same
male in the fifth generation as compared to first generation, no significant
difference in the mate preference by females in the fifth generation between the
two selected lines was observed. These findings suggest that the selection
experiments need to be performed on a greater number of generations to get
conclusive results or that there may be no genetic basis for loyalty in females for
mate choice in Drosophila melanogaster.