Intralocus sexual conflict and insecticide resistance

Abstract

The BA allele of the Drosophila cytochrome P450 gene Cyp6g1 confers resistance to a range of insecticides. It is also subject to intralocus sexual conflict when introgressed into the Canton-S background, whose collection predates the widespread use of insecticides. In this genetic background, the allele confers a pleiotropic fitness benefit to females but a cost to males, and exhibits little sexual dimorphism in conferred insecticide resistance. It is unclear whether these sexually antagonistic effects also exist in current populations that have naturally evolved with insecticides, where genetic modifiers that offset male costs might be expected to evolve. Here, we explore these issues using Drosophila melanogaster caught recently from an Australian population in which the BA allele naturally segregates. While we find increased fecundity in insecticide-resistant BA females and no consistent evidence of fitness costs in males, experimental evolution indicates balancing selection at the locus. We suggest that this apparent discrepancy may be due to reduced investment in reproduction in resistant males. Our results at the population level are consistent with previous work, and suggest that individual-level fitness assays do not always capture sexually antagonistic fitness effects that emerge in a population context.