Meeting Abstract
From the colorful dewlap of Anolis lizards to courtship displays in turtles, reptiles exhibit a wide array of traits presumed important in sexual selection. Many reptiles exhibit sexually dimorphic pigmentation or energetically costly displays that have few explanations beyond their potential role in female choice. However, limited evidence exists for female reptiles actively choosing mates before copulation. If female choice and sexually dimorphic traits are positively related, then intersexual selection should be an important evolutionary process maintaining sexual dimorphism. This possibility is particularly interesting in reptiles with temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD), where the genomes are identical between the sexes. We used the painted turtle (Chrysemys picta) as a model reptile to understand which male traits may influence a female’s choice of mates. We held turtles in outdoor ponds April-August of this two-year study, where they were allowed to mate and nest. We measured body size, male claw length, arm stripe color, and immune health in adults. We collected and incubated eggs in 2016 and assigned parentage for all hatchlings using a panel of 96 maximally-informative SNPs. We considered relationships between siring success and the measured sire traits as evidence for female choice, providing novel insight into the role of color, immunity, and sexually dimorphic traits in female mate choice in a reptile with TSD.
