Abstract
Severe intraspecific competition for mates selects for aggressive individuals but may also lead to the evolution of alternative phenotypes that do not act aggressively, yet manage to acquire matings. The two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae, shows male mate-guarding behaviour and male–male combat for available females. This may provide opportunity for weaker males to avoid fighting by adopting alternative mating behaviour such as sneaker or satellite tactics as observed in other animals. We investigated male precopulatory behaviour in the two-spotted spider mite by means of video-techniques and found three types of male mating behaviour: territorial, sneaker and opportunistic. Territorial and sneaker males associate with female teleiochrysales and spend much time guarding them. Territorial males are easily disturbed by rival males and engage themselves in fights with them. However, sneaker males are not at all disturbed by rival males, never engage in fights and, strikingly, never face attack by territorial males. Opportunistic males wander around in search of females that are in the teleiochrysalis stage but very close to or at emergence. To quickly classify any given mate-guarding male as territorial or sneaker we developed a method based on the instantaneous response of males to disturbance by a live male mounted on top of a brush. We tested this method against the response of the same males to natural disturbance by two or three other males. Because this method proved to be successful, we used it to collect territorial and sneaker males, and subjected them to morphological analysis to assess whether the various behavioural phenotypes are associated with different morphological characters. However, we found no statistical differences between territorial and sneaker males, concerning the length of the first legs, the stylets, the pedipalps or the body.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10493-013-9673-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
We investigated male precopulatory behaviour in the two-spotted spider mite by means of video-techniques and found three types of male mating behaviour: territorial, sneaker and opportunistic
Males often engage in fights with conspecific males to secure mating with available females and to ensure fathering offspring (Andersson 1994)
Less competitive males is well known in the family Salmoninae (Esteve 2005)
Summary
Males often engage in fights with conspecific males to secure mating with available females and to ensure fathering offspring (Andersson 1994). At the moment of egg release, the smaller males take a position closer to the eggs and release sperm when the smaller males are close enough and not attacked by larger males, usually because males are engaged in fights with other large males In this way, the smaller males gain fertilization success without having to win a fight over a female. The existence of alternative phenotypes for male mating behaviour has not been studied We expect such behavioural alternatives in the two-spotted spider mite, because as observed by Potter et al (1976a, b) male combat for available females is intense. We observed precopulatory behaviour in males of the two-spotted spider mite using video-techniques and investigated differences in premating behaviour among the males In this way, we were able to describe three behavioural phenotypes. We investigated whether the behavioural phenotypes identified exhibit morphological differences
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