An ecological analysis of mating biology of Xylocopa virginica in southern Ontario

Abstract

1. Xylocopa virginica virginica Linnaeus is a wide‐ranging species with plastic nesting behaviour that appears to represent an intermediary between solitary and social nesting species. Over 3 years, a natural population was studied with the objective of quantifying the relationship among population dynamics, climate, female nest provisioning behaviour, and male mating strategy.2. Males in the population congregated around female‐occupied nesting sites before the beginning of nest provisioning by females; both resident and satellite male mating strategies were observed. Overall, the present results are consistent with female defence polygyny.3. Male mating strategies were consistent across the three breeding seasons of our study, in spite of annual variation in population size, sex ratio, and weather. Male mating behaviour was also consistent with that seen in other populations with longer breeding seasons.4. Adult non‐breeding females that never leave nests are observed in nests throughout the breeding season and we hypothesise that males continue to defend territories after breeding females have mated because of a small probability they can mate with one of these non‐breeding females.5. These results are important to our understanding of the relationship between mating systems and the evolution of sociality, contributing data on the role of ecological factors to male mating behaviour. Collection of such data for a variety of species that differ in sociality is necessary for the comparative analysis that is required to fully elucidate coevolution of mating systems and sociality.