Digest: Female-limited X chromosome evolution in Drosophila melanogaster

Sexual dimorphism can cause sexual antagonism of phenotypic traits. Lund-Hansen and colleagues (2020) investigated female-limited X chromosome evolution in Drosophila melanogaster using forced matrilineal inheritance. Body size and developmental time evolved toward their female optima, but reproductive fitness and locomotion remained unchanged. These findings imply that some sexually antagonized loci may be distributed across the genome and that some phenotypes may have already reached their female optima in nature.