Jessica K Abbott

• PhD
• Senior Lecturer at Lund University

Although variation in effect sizes and predicted values among studies of similar phenomena is inevitable, such variation far exceeds what might be produced by sampling error alone. One possible explanation for variation among results is differences among researchers in the decisions they make regarding statistical analyses. A growing array of studi...

Large scale genomic resources can place genetic variation into an ecologically informed context. To advance our understanding of the population genetics of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster , we present an expanded release of the community-generated population genomics resource Drosophila Evolution over Space and Time (DEST 2.0; https://dest.bi...

It is often argued that anisogamy causes alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs) to be more common in males than females. We challenge this view by pointing out logical flaws in the argument. We then review recent work on the diversity of female ARTs, listing several understudied types such as solitary versus communal breeding and facultative parth...

The evolution of suppressed recombination between sex chromosomes is widely hypothesized to be driven by sexually antagonistic selection (SA), where tighter linkage between the sex-determining gene(s) and nearby SA loci is favored when it couples male-beneficial alleles to the proto-Y chromosome, and female-beneficial alleles to the proto-X. Althou...

RNA sequencing (RNAseq) methodology has experienced a burst of technological developments in the last decade, which has opened up opportunities for studying the mechanisms of adaptation to environmental factors at both the organismal and cellular level. Selecting the most suitable experimental approach for specific research questions and model syst...

The evolution of gonochorism from hermaphroditism is linked with the formation of sex chromosomes, as well as the evolution of sex-biased and sex-specific gene expression to allow both sexes to reach their fitness optimum. There is evidence that sexual selection drives the evolution of male-biased gene expression in particular. However, previous re...

Although variation in effect sizes and predicted values among studies of similar phenomena is inevitable, such variation far exceeds what might be produced by sampling error alone. One possible explanation for variation among results is differences among researchers in the decisions they make regarding statistical analyses. A growing array of studi...

The genomic conflict between the sexes is caused by differences in the optimal male and female reproductive strategies, and is a major contributor to genetic, phenotypic, and life history variation. While early experimental work appeared to strongly support predictions from sexual conflict, recent work has produced more ambiguous results. Recent ad...

*Message me if you would like a copy of the full text* We review the use of science by lawmakers and courts in implementing or rejecting legal rights for nature in Ecuador, India, the United States, and other jurisdictions where some type of rights of nature have been recognized in the legal system. We then use the “right to evolve” to exemplify ho...

The idea that sex-differences in selection drive the evolution of suppressed recombination between sex chromosomes is well-developed in population genetics. Yet, despite a now classic body of theory, empirical evidence that sexually antagonistic selection drives the evolution of recombination arrest remains equivocal and alternative hypotheses unde...

The evolution of separate sexes from hermaphroditism is thought to have occurred independently many times, and may be linked to the evolution of sex chromosomes. Even though we have a good understanding of the theoretical steps in the evolution of sex chromosomes from a hermaphrodite ancestor, the initial stages are still hard to study in animals b...

Sexual dimorphism in somatic investment may be shaped by two distinct forms of sexual conflict; under intralocus sexual conflict (IASC), males and females have different optimal levels of somatic investment but are constrained from reaching their respective optima by their shared genome, while under interlocus sexual conflict (IRSC), males and fema...

Sex chromosomes are typically viewed as having originated from a pair of autosomes, and differentiated as the sex-limited chromosome (e.g. Y) has degenerated by losing most genes through cessation of recombination. While often thought that degenerated sex-limited chromosomes primarily affect traits involved in sex determination and sex cell product...

The evolution of separate sexes from hermaphroditism is thought to have occurred independently many times, and is linked to the evolution of sex chromosomes. Even though we have a good understanding of the theoretical steps in the evolution of sex chromosomes from a hermaphrodite ancestor, the initial stages are still hard to study because many sex...

The evolution of suppressed recombination between sex chromosomes is widely hypothesized to be driven by sexually antagonistic selection (SA), where tighter linkage between the sex‐determining gene(s) and nearby SA loci is favoured when it couples male‐beneficial alleles to the proto‐Y chromosome, and female‐beneficial alleles to the proto‐X. Despi...

Alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs) often exhibit more than one mating behavior depending on social context (i.e., behavioral plasticity). It has been hypothesized that by constraining an ART from reaching optimal morphological states, intralocus tactical conflict could promote the maintenance of behavioral plasticity in ARTs, rather than the u...

Drosophila melanogaster is a leading model in population genetics and genomics, and a growing number of whole-genome data sets from natural populations of this species have been published over the last years. A major challenge is the integration of disparate data sets, often generated using different sequencing technologies and bioinformatic pipeli...

Drosophila melanogaster is a leading model in population genetics and genomics, and a growing number of whole-genome datasets from natural populations of this species have been published over the last years. A major challenge is the integration of disparate datasets, often generated using different sequencing technologies and bioinformatic pipeline...

The question of how to define life has been an unresolved question in the philosophy of biology for many years, but developing a definition of life that is useful in both technical and everyday contexts has become more urgent as researchers around the world attempt to create fully synthetics cells in the laboratory, develop more and more intelligen...

Drosophila melanogaster is an important model for antiviral immunity in arthropods, but very few DNA viruses have been described from the family Drosophilidae. This deficiency limits our opportunity to use natural host-pathogen combinations in experimental studies, and may bias our understanding of the Drosophila virome. Here we report fourteen DNA...

Alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs) have provided valuable insights into how sexual selection and life history trade‐offs can lead to variation within a sex. However, the possibility that tactics may constrain evolution through intralocus tactical conflict (IATC) is rarely considered. In addition, when IATC has been considered, the focus has of...

Intralocus sexual conflict arises when the expression of shared alleles at a single locus generates opposite fitness effects in each sex (i.e. sexually antagonistic alleles), preventing each sex from reaching its sex-specific optimum. Despite its importance to reproductive success, the relative contribution of intralocus sexual conflict to male pre...

Significance Sex chromosomes are not only involved in genetic sex determination—they are also important factors in sexual conflict and speciation. Using laboratory experiments and population genetic modeling, we show that the sex chromosomes of Drosophila melanogaster can coevolve antagonistically. We found that swapping sex chromosomes between fiv...

Drosophila melanogaster is a leading model in population genetics and genomics, and a growing number of whole-genome datasets from natural populations of this species have been published over the last 20 years. A major challenge is the integration of these disparate datasets, often generated using different sequencing technologies and bioinformatic...

Alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs) have provided valuable insights into how sexual selection and life history tradeoffs can lead to variation within a sex. However, the possibility that tactics may constrain evolution through intralocus tactical conflict (IATC) is rarely considered. In addition, when IATC has been considered, the focus has oft...

Intralocus conflict has been well documented between the sexes, but much less is known about the potential for this genetic conflict in other polymorphisms, such as alternative reproductive tactics. Here we investigate two of three criteria necessary for demonstrating intralocus tactical conflict: the ARTs have different phenotypic optima for a sha...

The sexes may have different optima in cognitive traits due to differences in life history strategies and the expense of investing in metabolically costly brain tissue. However, given genetic correlations, each sex could be constrained from reaching its cognitive optimum due to intralocus sexual conflict. We compared learning performance of two mal...

Drosophila melanogaster is an important model for antiviral immunity in arthropods, but very few DNA viruses have been described in association with the Drosophilidae. This has limited the opportunity to use natural host-pathogen combinations in experimental studies, and may have biased our understanding of the Drosophila virome. Here we describe f...

A handful of studies have investigated sexually antagonistic constraints on achieving sex‐specific fitness optima, though exclusively through male‐genome‐limited evolution experiments. In this paper, we established a female‐limited X chromosome evolution experiment, where we used an X chromosome balancer to enforce the inheritance of the X through...

Genetic variation is the fuel of evolution, with standing genetic variation especially important for short-term evolution and local adaptation. To date, studies of spatio-temporal patterns of genetic variation in natural populations have been challenging, as comprehensive sampling is logistically difficult, and sequencing of entire populations cost...

A handful of studies have investigated sexually antagonistic constraints on obtaining sex-specific fitness optima, though exclusively through male-genome-limited evolution experiments. In this paper, we established a female-limited X chromosome evolution experiment, where we used an X chromosome balancer to enforce the inheritance of the X chromoso...

The idea that sex-differences in selection drive the evolution of suppressed recombination between sex chromosomes is well-developed in population genetics. Yet, despite a now classic body of theory, empirical evidence that sexual antagonism drives the evolution of recombination suppression remains meagre and alternative hypotheses underdeveloped....

Due to its hemizygous inheritance and role in sex determination, the X chromosome is expected to play an important role in the evolution of sexual dimorphism, and to be enriched for sexually antagonistic genetic variation. By forcing the X chromosome to only be expressed in males over > 40 generations, we changed the selection pressures on the X to...

Antagonistic interactions between the sexes are important drivers of evolutionary divergence. Interlocus sexual conflict is generally described as a conflict between alleles at two interacting loci whose identity and genomic location are arbitrary. Here we build on previous theory and suggest that when these two loci are located on the sex chromoso...

Due to its hemizygous inheritance and role in sex determination, the X chromosome is expected to play an important role in the evolution of sexual dimorphism, and to be enriched for sexually antagonistic genetic variation. By forcing the X chromosome to only be expressed in males over >40 generations, we changed the selection pressures on the X to...

Alternative reproductive tactics occur when individuals of the same sex have a suite of morphological and/or behavioural traits that allow them to pursue different reproductive strategies. A common pattern is e.g. the existence of "courter" and "sneaker" tactics within males. We have previously argued that alternative reproductive tactics should be...

Sexually antagonistic genes are thought to play an important role in X chromosome evolution, and there is some empirical evidence that the X chromosome is enriched for the sexually antagonistic variance for fitness. In this project, we are studying the nature of X-linked sexually antagonistic loci by carrying out female-limited X chromosome (FLX) e...

There is growing evidence across taxa for a mortality-growth rate tradeoff, however the extent to which individuals experience selection both for and against growing faster in the wild can be difficult to assess. We used otoliths to assess growth rates in the wild for Xiphophorus multilineatus, a species of swordtail fish with genetically influence...

Alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs) have improved our understanding of the evolution of adaptive variation; for instance, their study has led us to understand that the best phenotype (e.g. large and flashy) for a tactic that uses one mating behavior (e.g. court females) is often not the best phenotype (e.g. small and inconspicuous) for a tactic...

The project “A Plurality of Lives” was funded and hosted by the Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies at Lund University, Sweden. The aim of the project was to better understand how a second origin of life, either in the form of a discovery of extraterrestrial life, life developed in a laboratory, or machines equipped with abilities previously o...

Most studies on eco‐evolutionary feedbacks concern the influence of abiotic factors, or predator‐prey and host‐parasite interactions, while studies involving sexual interactions are lagging behind. This is at odds with the potential of these interactions to engage in such processes. Indeed, there is now ample evidence that sexual selection is affec...

Alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs) are characterized by dimorphism for reproductive phenotypes (i.e. tactical dimorphism). Tactical dimorphism often evolves as a response to differing phenotypic optima for a shared reproductive trait between members of the same sex in a species. We characterized dimorphism for body shape between ARTs in the sw...

Persson, Erik; Abbott, Jessica: “Towards a family resemblance definition of 'Life' 2019 Meeting of the International Society for History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology – Oslo 2019

The study of eco-evolutionary feedbacks is in clear recent expansion. However, most studies concern predator-prey and host-parasite interactions, while the analysis of eco-evolutionary feedbacks involving sexual interactions is lagging behind. This is at odds with the potential of these interactions to engage in such processes. Indeed, there is now...

Local adaptation in hermaphrodite species can be based on a variety of fitness components, including survival, as well as both female and male sex-functions within individuals. When selection via female and male fitness components varies spatially (e.g. due to environmental heterogeneity), local adaptation will depend, in part, on variation in sele...

Genetic variation is the fuel of evolution. However, analyzing dynamics of evolutionary change in natural populations is challenging, genome sequencing of entire populations remains costly and comprehensive sample collection logistically challenging. To tackle this issue and to define relevant spatial and temporal scales of variation for a populati...

It is commonly assumed that sex chromosomes evolve recombination suppression because selection favours linkage between sex-determining and sexually antagonistic genes. However, although the role of sexual antagonism during sex chromosome evolution has attained strong support from theory, experimental and observational evidence is rare or equivocal....

I årtusenden har människan försökt definiera livet – hur levande djur och växter skiljer sig från död materia. Problemet är dock att livet är mångfacetterat, och varje regel har sitt undantag. Vi försöker möta kommande utmaningar med nya livsformer, genom att lyfta fram en ny definition av liv.

Liv är ett centralt begrepp inom många forskningsområden, exempelvis inom biologi, astrobiologi, kemi och medicin, såväl som inom juridik, teologi och filosofi. Liv är också ett centralt tema i konsten. Det behandlas och begrundas i åtskilliga konstverk, i dikt, roman och film. Hur vi skall förstå, värdera och skydda livet, är oerhört fundamentala...

Populations respond to novel environmental challenges either through genetic changes, through adaptive phenotypic plasticity for the traits in question, or by a combination of these factors. Here, we investigated the evolutionary potential of phenotypic plasticity for male mating success, locomotory ability, and heating rate (a physiological perfor...

Many separate-sexed organisms have sex chromosomes controlling sex determination. Sex chromosomes often have reduced recombination, specialized (frequently sex-specific) gene content, dosage compensation and heteromorphic size. Research on sex determination and sex chromosome evolution has increased over the past decade and is today a very active f...

A trade-off between survival to sexual maturity and mating success is common across alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs), and can lead to tactical disruptive selection on shared traits (i.e. positive selection gradient in one tactic, and negative selection gradient in another). We were interested in examining the theoretical possibility of tacti...

DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT FROM: http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/eprint/QT9E73V7bPvufAarjtNI/full/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-120213-091611 ABSTRACT: Using basic ecological concepts, we introduce sperm ecology as a framework to study sperm cells. First, we describe environmental effects on sperm and conclude that evolutionary and ecological research should...

Although males are generally less discriminating than females when it comes to choosing a mate, they still benefit from distinguishing between mates that are receptive to courtship and those that are not, in order to avoid wasting time and energy. It is known that males of Drosophila melanogaster are able to learn to associate olfactory and gustato...

Sexual antagonism occurs when there is a positive intersexual genetic correlation in trait expression but opposite fitness effects of the trait(s) in males and females. As such, it constrains the evolution of sexual dimorphism and may therefore have implications for adaptive evolution. There is currently considerable evidence for the existence of s...

Significance Recently, it was discovered that small insects like flies and wasps, with seemingly transparent wings, display vivid coloration against dark backgrounds because of so-called “wing interference patterns” (WIPs). It was proposed that such wing coloration could function in sexual selection and species recognition, but direct evidence for...

Understanding the genetic architecture of disease is an enormous challenge, and should be guided by evolutionary principles. Recent studies in evolutionary genetics show that sexual selection can have a profound influence on the genetic architecture of complex traits. Here, we summarise data from heritability studies and genome-wide association stu...

Sexual antagonism occurs when there is a positive intersexual genetic correlation in trait expression but opposite fitness effects of the trait(s) in males and females. As such, it constrains the evolution of sexual dimorphism and may therefore have implications for adaptive evolution. There is currently considerable evidence for the existence of s...

1. Self‐medication is an ability to consume or otherwise contact biologically active organic compounds specifically for the purpose of helping to clear a (parasitic) infection or reduce its symptoms. Consumption of these compounds may either take place before the infection is contracted (prophylactic consumption) or after the infection is contracte...

Alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs) are characterized by consistent and discrete variations in the reproductive behaviors (e.g. mating, fighting, and nesting) of members of the same sex. Selection against intermediate expression of reproductive traits (disruptive selection) can lead to the evolution of ARTs, and can generate intralocus tactical...

There are significant differences in the biology of males and females, ranging from biochemical pathways to behavioural responses, which are relevant to modern medicine. Broad-sense heritability estimates differ between the sexes for many common medical disorders, indicating that genetic architecture can be sex-dependent. Recent genome-wide associa...

When males and females have different fitness optima for the same trait but share loci, intralocus sexual conflict is likely to occur. Epigenetic mechanisms such as genomic imprinting (in which expression is altered according to parent-of-origin) and sex-specific maternal effects have been suggested as ways by which this conflict can be resolved. H...

Tables S1–S3 & Figures S1–S4. (DOCX)

Colour polymorphic species with extensive ranges often exhibit large-scale geographic patterns of morph frequency variation. Because colour polymorphism is associated with correlated differences in multiple traits, such as thermal performance, a likely proximate explanation for such patterns is morph-specific responses to temperature variation. The...

Sexually dimorphic traits are likely to have evolved through sexually antagonistic selection. However, recent empirical data suggest that intralocus sexual conflict often persists, even when traits have diverged between males and females. This implies that evolved dimorphism is often incomplete in resolving intralocus conflict, providing a mechanis...

Hemiclones are naturally occurring or artificially produced individuals that share a single specific genetic haplotype. Natural hemiclones are produced via hybridization between two closely related species, whereas hemiclonal analysis in Drosophila is carried out in the laboratory via crosses with artificially created 'clone-generator' females with...

Intralocus sexual conflict occurs when opposing selection pressures operate on loci expressed in both sexes, constraining the evolution of sexual dimorphism and displacing one or both sexes from their optimum. We eliminated intralocus conflict in Drosophila melanogaster by limiting transmission of all major chromosomes to males, thereby allowing th...

Intra-locus sexual conflict results when sex-specific selection pressures for a given trait act against the intra-sexual genetic correlation for that trait. It has been found in a wide variety of taxa in both laboratory and natural populations, but the importance of intra-locus sexual conflict and sexually antagonistic genetic variation in hermaphr...

Background: Positive intersexual genetic correlations are typically viewed as constraining the evolution of sexual dimorphism, when traits are subject to sexually antagonistic selection. Our study species, the damselfly Ischnura elegans, has a female-limited colour polymorphism with three female colour morphs (males are monomorphic), one of which i...

Abstract 1. The female-limited colour polymorphic damselfly Ischnura elegans has proven to be an interesting study organism both as an example of female sexual polymorphism, and in the context of the evolution of colour polymorphism, as a model of speciation processes. 2. Previous research suggests the existence of correlations between colour morph...

The existence and mode of selection operating on heritable adaptive traits can be inferred by comparing population differentiation in neutral genetic variation between populations (often using F(ST) values) with the corresponding estimates for adaptive traits. Such comparisons indicate if selection acts in a diversifying way between populations, in...

Heritable and visually detectable polymorphisms, such as trophic polymorphisms, ecotypes, or colour morphs, have become classical model systems among ecological geneticists and evolutionary biologists. The relatively simple genetic basis of many polymorphisms (one or a few loci) makes such species well-suited to study evolutionary processes in natu...

In this study we investigated the developmental basis of adult phenotypes in a non-model organism, a polymorphic damselfly (Ischnura elegans) with three female colour morphs. This polymorphic species presents an ideal opportunity to study intraspecific variation in growth trajectories, morphological variation in size and shape during the course of...

Although colour polymorphisms in adult organisms of many taxa are often adaptive in the context of sexual selection or predation, genetic correlations between colour and other phenotypic traits expressed early in ontogeny could also play an important role in polymorphic systems. We studied phenotypic and genetic variation in development time among...

Conspicuous heritable polymorphisms are useful to address the question if morph frequencies are stable or whether they fluctuate between generations. Ecological geneticists have studied colour polymorphisms in the past, but there are few long-term studies of genetic dynamics across multiple generations. We studied morph-frequency dynamics and femal...

Rapid evolutionary change over a few generations has been documented in natural populations. Such changes are observed as organisms invade new environments, and they are often triggered by changed interspecific interactions, such as differences in predation regimes. However, in spite of increased recognition of antagonistic male-female mating inter...

Rapid evolutionary change over a few generations has been documented in natural populations. Such changes are observed as organisms invade new environments, and they are often triggered by changed interspecific interactions, such as differences in predation regimes. However, in spite of increased recognition of antagonistic male‐female mating inter...