Promiscuity punishes sexual deviants

Abstract

Sex is good for us, but it is a compromise. For the benefit of being able to pro-duce genetically variable offspring, we must pay the cost of passing on only half our genes to each of them. Whilst evolutionary biologists still puzzle over the precise details of why the benefits of sex so frequently seem to outweigh the costs (Neiman, Lively, & Meirmans, 2017), one major challenge to sexual repro-duction is the fact that if we pass on only half our genetic material to each gamete, there is a strong incentive for each individual allele to try to gain an unfair representation during gamete production. Fundamental to stabilizing sex once it evolves is therefore the ability to ensure a fair meiosis. Nevertheless, this system is not perfect, and some selfish genetic elements – so-called meiotic dri-vers – manage to tip the meiotic scales in their favour and gain a transmission advantage (review in Burt and Trivers, 2006). In this issue of Molecular Ecology, Manser, Lindholm, Simmons, and Firman (2017) demonstrate that in house mice, the effectiveness of one such harmful transmission distorter is reduced by poly-andry and hence that population viability can be somewhat restored by female promiscuity.