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The dynamics of sexual conflict over mating rate with endosymbiont infection that affects reproductive phenotypes

Maternally inherited endosymbionts have been implicated as significant drivers of sexual conflict within their hosts, typically through sex‐ratio manipulation. Empirical studies show that some of these endosymbionts have the potential to influence sexual conflict not by sex‐ratio distortion, but by altering reproductive traits within their hosts. Research has already shown that reproductive traits involved in mating/fertilization process are integral ‘players’ in sexual conflict, thus suggesting the novel hypothesis that endosymbiont‐induced changes in reproductive phenotypes can impact the dynamics of sexual conflict. Here, we use a standard quantitative genetic approach to model the effects of endosymbiont‐induced changes in a female reproductive trait on the dynamics of sexual conflict over mating/fertilization rate. Our model shows that an endosymbiont‐induced alteration of a host female reproductive trait that affects mating rate can maintain the endosymbiont infection within the host population, and does so in the absence of sex‐ratio distortion and cytoplasmic incompatibility.