Ageing via sexual perception is a by-product of male adaptive plasticity in Drosophila melanogaster

Abstract

Sensory perception of environmental cues can dramatically modulate ageing across distant taxa. For example, male Drosophila melanogaster age faster if they perceive female cues but fail to mate (ageing via sexual perception). This finding has been a breakthrough for our understanding of the mechanisms of ageing, yet we ignore how and why such responses have evolved. Here, we used D. melanogaster to ask whether ageing via sexual perception may be a by-product of plastic adaptive responses to female cues, and found that while long-term sexual perception leads to reproductive costs, short-term perception increases male lifetime reproductive success in a competitive environment. Simulations under a wide range of socio-sexual and demographic scenario suggest that such plasticity as a response to sexual perception might be a widespread strategy in nature. Finally, we show that sexual perception can significantly magnify sexual selection (15-27% average increase in the opportunity for selection).