Conditions for the Trivers-Willard hypothesis to be valid: A minimal population-genetic model

Abstract

The very insightful Trivers-Willard hypothesis, proposed in the early 1970s, states that females in good physiological conditions are more likely to produce male offspring, when the variance of reproductive success amongst males is high. A number of studies, aimed at its experimental verification, have found adequate supportive evidence in its favour. Theoretical investigations, however, have been few, perhaps because formulating a population-genetic model for describing the Trivers-Willard hypothesis turns out to be surprisingly complex. The present study describes a minimal population genetic model to explore one specific scenario, viz. how is the preference for a male offspring by females in good condition altered when 'g', the proportion of such females in the population changes from a low to a high value. As expected, when the proportion of such females is low, i.e., for low values of 'g', the Trivers-Willard (TW) strategy goes to fixation against the equal investment strategy. This holds true up to gmax, a critical value of 'g', above which the two strategies coexist, but the proportion of the TW strategy steadily decreases as 'g' increases to unity. Similarly, when the effect of well-endowed males attaining disproportionately high number of matings is more pronounced, the TW strategy is more likely to go to fixation. Interestingly, the success of the TW strategy has a complex dependence on the variance in the physiological condition of females. If the difference in the two types of conditions is not large, TW strategy is favoured, and its success is more likely as the difference increases. However, beyond a critical value of the difference, the TW strategy is found to be less and less likely to succeed as the difference becomes larger. Possible reasons for these effects are discussed.