Meeting Abstract
What is the role of sexual selection in adaptive evolution? Theory, modeling, and data tell us that sexual selection can facilitate adaptive evolution by favoring specific traits that are also favored by natural selection, by purging deleterious mutations, and by favoring high-condition individuals that can achieve high fitness in a range of environmental conditions. These scenarios are complicated, however, by variable or novel environments, in which sexual selection can fail to track changes in natural selection, thereby becoming an impediment to adaptive evolution. We propose another route whereby sexual selection can facilitate adaptive evolution. In particular, we present observational and experimental data that suggest that offspring plasticity can function as an indirect benefit of mate choice and that sexual selection can thereby facilitate adaptation in variable or novel environments by promoting the evolution of adaptive plasticity.
