Fluctuating asymmetry and copulation success in lekking black grouse

A trade-off between early growth rate and fluctuating asymmetry in Brazilian boys

BACKGROUND

Right-left discrepancies in normally symmetrical traits are assumed to result from inability of the individual to buffer environmental and genetic stresses. Fluctuating asymmetry (FA) may therefore signal the quality of an individual to potential mates, or to parents during early life. FA could signal the heritable ability to buffer stress-the 'good genes' hypothesis. Alternatively, FA could signal the degree of within-lifetime exposure to stress, in particular during specific sensitive periods of development--the 'good development' hypothesis.

AIM

We tested the hypotheses that FA at 9 years of age is positively related to (a) fetal growth rate, (b) early infant growth rate, and (c) total post-natal growth rate.

METHODS

FA, weight and height were measured in a sample of 172 boys aged 9 years from Pelotas, Brazil, who had previous measurements of weight and height at birth and 6 months.

RESULTS

Fetal growth was not related to FA, however FA was positively related to total weight gain after birth (p < 0.05). This association could be broadly attributed to weight gain in the first 6 months of post-natal life (p = 0.075). Those currently obese had significantly greater FA than those non-obese (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Our results support the 'good development' hypothesis, and suggest that growth rate during an early post-natal critical window, previously linked to numerous health outcomes, also has long-term effects on FA.

On Adaptive Accuracy and Precision in Natural Populations

Adaptation is usually conceived as the fit of a population mean to a fitness optimum. Natural selection, however, does not act only to optimize the population mean. Rather, selection normally acts on the fitness of individual organisms in the population. Furthermore, individual genotypes do not produce invariant phenotypes, and their fitness depends on how precisely they are able to realize their target phenotypes. For these reasons we suggest that it is better to conceptualize adaptation as accuracy rather than as optimality. The adaptive inaccuracy of a genotype can be measured as a function of the expected distance of its associated phenotype from a fitness optimum. The less the distance, the more accurate is the adaptation. Adaptive accuracy has two components: the deviance of the genotypically set target phenotype from the optimum and the precision with which this target phenotype can be realized. The second component, the adaptive precision, has rarely been quantified as such. We survey the literature to quantify how much of the phenotypic variation in wild populations is due to imprecise development. We find that this component is often substantial and highly variable across traits. We suggest that selection for improved precision may be important for many traits.

Dance reveals symmetry especially in young men

Dance is believed to be important in the courtship of a variety of species, including humans, but nothing is known about what dance reveals about the underlying phenotypic--or genotypic--quality of the dancer. One measure of quality in evolutionary studies is the degree of bodily symmetry (fluctuating asymmetry, FA), because it measures developmental stability. Does dance quality reveal FA to the observer and is the effect stronger for male dancers than female? To answer these questions, we chose a population that has been measured twice for FA since 1996 (ref. 9) in a society (Jamaican) in which dancing is important in the lives of both sexes. Motion-capture cameras created controlled stimuli (in the form of videos) that isolated dance movements from all other aspects of visual appearance (including FA), and the same population evaluated these videos for dancing ability. Here we report that there are strong positive associations between symmetry and dancing ability, and these associations were stronger in men than in women. In addition, women rate dances by symmetrical men relatively more positively than do men, and more-symmetrical men value symmetry in women dancers more than do less-symmetrical men. In summary, dance in Jamaica seems to show evidence of sexual selection and to reveal important information about the dancer.

Potential relationships between physical traits and male broiler breeder fertility

Genetic selection in primary broiler breeders may modify skeletal structure, possibly impeding semen transfer, and could alter the size and degree of fluctuating asymmetry (FA) of bilateral traits associated with fertility. Hence, we hypothesized specific morphometric traits could predict differential fertility. Sixty primary broiler breeder males from Strains A and B (n = 30/strain) were individually housed with an average of 10 females per male. Male fertility and sperm penetration (SP) through the perivitelline layer were estimated on fresh eggs. At 50 wk, BW, keel length (KL), posterior pelvic width and length (PPW, PPL), dorsal pelvic width and length (DPW, DPL), tarsometatarsal length and width (TL, TW), comb length and width (CL, CW), and wattle length, width, and area (WL, WW, WA) were measured. Results indicated that Strain A had smaller BW, KL, WL, WW, WA, CL, CW, PPL, DPL, and DPW. A higher degree of FA was found in Strain A TL and WL (P < 0.05), yet DPW FA was greater for Strain B (P < 0.001). In addition, DPW FA negatively correlated with Strain B fertility (r = -0.369; P < 0.01); however, other FA measurements did not correlate with estimated fertility or SP. Strain A WL correlated with SP (r = 0.383; P < 0.01) and fertility (r = 0.346; P < 0.01). Results indicate DPW alteration may impact semen transfer upon copulation, as Strain A fertility negatively correlated with DPW (r = -0.298; P < 0.05). This research provides evidence that morphometric traits might be useful to predict fertility in broiler breeders.

Decision making and recognition mechanisms

Determining how individuals adjust their behaviour to maximize reproductive opportunities is fundamental to understanding the adaptive significance of behavioural variations. Such 'decision making' requires recognition mechanisms, whereby an individual evaluates cues that yield information about the potential reproductive outcomes of alternative behaviours. Here, we develop a quantitative model for understanding how individuals evaluate cues. Only when a proximate (immediate) cue predicts reproductive value more reliably than an evolved predisposition, will the cue influence an individual's decision. The model resolves some long-standing controversies in evolutionary biology involving recognition mechanisms and interpretations of behavioural decisions that were observed after manipulations of cues of parentage, kinship and mate quality.

Fluctuating asymmetry, size and mating success in males of Ischnura elegans (Vander Linden) (Odonata: Coenagrionidae)

Fluctuating asymmetry (FA) is thought to be an indicator of developmental stability and negatively related to male mating success in many animal taxa. We investigated the relationships between mating success of males, body size and FA for both wing length and number of setae on the legs in the damselfly Ischnura elegans. Males were classified as mated or unmated at the time of sampling. Fluctuating asymmetry, expressed as right-left differences, showed normal distributions without evidence of directional asymmetry or antisymmetry. Univariate analyses showed a significant negative correlation between size and mating success, and significant negative correlations between FA and mating success for both characters. On the other hand, with a multivariate analysis, new to studies on FA, the effect of body size was still significant but FA did not reach significance for either character. We conclude that the multivariate analysis should be used to assess the role of the different factors affecting mating success. Copyright 2000 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.

Fluctuating asymmetry and human male life-history traits in rural Belize

Fluctuating asymmetry (FA), used as a measure of phenotypic quality, has proven to be a useful predictor of human life-history variation, but nothing is known about its effects in humans living in higher fecundity and mortality conditions, typical before industrialization and the demographic transition. In this research, I analyse data on male life histories for a relatively isolated population in rural Belize. Some of the 56 subjects practise subsistence-level slash-and-burn farming, and others are involved in the cash economy. Fecundity levels are quite high in this population, with men over the age of 40 averaging over eight children. Low FA successfully predicted lower morbidity and more offspring fathered, and was marginally associated with a lower age at first reproduction and more lifetime sex partners. These results indicate that FA may be important in predicting human performance in fecundity and morbidity in predemographic transition conditions.

Developmental stability and human violence

Developmental stability (the precision with which genotypes are translated into phenotypes under physically stressful developmental conditions), is a major source of phenotypic and behavioural variation, yet researchers have largely ignored its potential role in the ontogeny of individual propensities toward human aggression and violence. In this study, we measured fluctuating asymmetry of the body and administered aggression and fighting history questionnaires to 229 college students (139 female and 90 male undergraduates). Among males, but not females, fluctuating asymmetry correlated negatively and significantly with the participants' number of fights and propensity to escalate agonistic encounters to physical violence. Principal components analyses and scree tests suggested that two psychometric factors underlie observed correlations between self-report measures of aggressive tendencies. The first factor, 'aggressive negative affect', reflected verbal aggression and hostility toward others, while the second factor, 'self-assessed fighting ability', reflected physical violence and a tendency to win fights. The two factors correlated minimally. For both males and females, the second factor correlated with number of fights while the first factor did not. Fluctuating asymmetry did not significantly correlate with either factor for either sex, but for both sexes, psychometric intelligence (IQ) correlated positively with the first factor.