Digest: Evaluating sexual conflict in the genome.

Abstract

Audet et al. (2024) investigate the genomic basis of sexual conflict in response to sexually discordant size selection in Drosophila melanogaster. They report interesting morphological changes in sexual dimorphism and multivariate allometry. Although they do not find any genetic variants that individually show a strong effect on these traits, as expected for a polygenic trait such as body size, they do find a region on chromosome 3L showing signs of sexually discordant selection (i.e., conflict between males and females). This study highlights potential genomic regions involved in sexual conflict, offering insights into sex-specific adaptations.