Male–female coevolution has taken different paths among closely related species, but our understanding of the factors that govern its direction is limited. While it is clear that ecological factors, life history, and the economics of reproduction are connected, the divergent links are often obscure. We propose that a complete understanding requires the conceptual integration of metabolic phenotypes. Metabolic rate, a nexus of life history evolution, is constrained by ecological factors and may exert important direct and indirect effects on the evolution of sexual dimorphism. We performed standardized experiments in 12 seed beetle species to gain a rich set of sex-specific measures of metabolic phenotypes, life history traits, and the economics of mating and analyzed our multivariate data using phylogenetic comparative methods. Resting metabolic rate (RMR) showed extensive evolution and evolved more rapidly in males than in females. The evolution of RMR was tightly coupled with a suite of life history traits, describing a pace-of-life syndrome (POLS), with indirect effects on the economics of mating. As predicted, high resource competition was associated with a low RMR and a slow POLS. The cost of mating showed sexually antagonistic coevolution, a hallmark of sexual conflict. The sex-specific costs and benefits of mating were predictably related to ecology, primarily through the evolution of male ejaculate size. Overall, our results support the tenet that resource competition affects metabolic processes that, in turn, have predictable effects on both life history evolution and reproduction, such that ecology shows both direct and indirect effects on male–female coevolution.

中文翻译：

---

种子甲虫代谢率、交配经济学、生态学和生活节奏的协同进化

雌雄共同进化在密切相关的物种中采取了不同的路径，但我们对控制其方向的因素的了解是有限的。很明显，生态因素、生命史和繁殖经济学是相互关联的，但不同的联系往往是模糊的。我们建议完整的理解需要代谢表型的概念整合。代谢率是生命史进化的一个纽带，受生态因素的制约，可能对两性二态性的进化产生重要的直接和间接影响。我们对 12 种种子甲虫进行了标准化实验，以获得一组丰富的性别特异性指标，包括代谢表型、生活史特征和交配经济学，并使用系统发育比较方法分析了我们的多变量数据。静息代谢率 (RMR) 显示出广泛的进化，并且在男性中比在女性中进化得更快。RMR 的进化与一系列生活史特征紧密相关，描述了一种生活节奏综合症 (POLS)，对交配经济学有间接影响。正如预测的那样，高资源竞争与低 RMR 和缓慢的 POLS 有关。交配的成本显示了性对立的共同进化，这是性冲突的一个标志。交配的特定性别成本和收益可以预见与生态相关，主要是通过男性射精大小的演变。总的来说，我们的结果支持资源竞争影响代谢过程的原则，而代谢过程反过来又对生命史进化和繁殖产生可预测的影响，