Cuticular hydrocarbon divergence in Drosophila melanogaster populations evolving under differential operational sex ratios

The ability of interlocus sexual conflict to facilitate reproductive isolation is widely anticipated. However, very few experimental evolutionary studies have convincingly demonstrated the evolution of reproductive isolation due to sexual conflict. Recently a study on replicate populations of Drosophila melanogaster under differential sexual conflict found that divergent mate preference evolved among replicate populations under high sexual conflict regime. The precopulatory isolating mechanism underlying such divergent mate preference could be sexual signals such as cuticular hydrocarbons since they evolve rapidly and are involved in D. melanogaster mate recognition. Using D. melanogaster replicates used in the previous study, we investigate whether cuticular hydrocarbon divergence bears signatures of sexually antagonistic coevolution that led to reproductive isolation among replicates of high sexual conflict regime. We found that D. melanogaster cuticular hydrocarbon profiles are sexually dimorphic. Although replicate populations under high sexual conflict displayed assortative mating, we found no significant differences in the cuticular hydrocarbon profile between the high and low sexual conflict regimes. Instead we find cuticular hydrocarbon divergence patterns to be suggestive of the Buridan’s Ass regime which is one of the six possible mechanisms to resolve sexual conflict. Sexual selection that co-vary between populations under high and low sexual conflict regimes may also have contributed to the evolution of cuticular hydrocarbons. This study indicates that population differentiation as a result of cuticular hydrocarbon divergence cannot be credited to sexual conflict despite high sexual conflict regime evolving divergent cuticular hydrocarbon profiles.