Heritability, evolvability, phenotypic plasticity and temporal variation in sperm‐competition success of Drosophila melanogaster

Sperm‐competition success ( SCS ) is seen as centrally important for evolutionary change: superior fathers sire superior sons and thereby inherit the traits that make them superior. Additional hypotheses, that phenotypic plasticity in SCS and sperm ageing explain variation in paternity, are less considered. Even though various alleles have individually been shown to be correlated with variation in SCS , few studies have addressed the...