Developmental plasticity in metabolic rates reinforces morphological plasticity in response to social cues of sexual selection

Abstract

Developmental plasticity allows individuals to match their phenotype to the competitive environment they are most likely to encounter. Although there are numerous studies that demonstrate adaptive shifts in life-history and metric traits, we still have a poor understanding of whether internal physiological processes demonstrate plasticity and whether this plasticity supports life-history and metric traits. Here we use the Australian redback spider (Latrodectus hasselti), a species that demonstrates adaptive developmental shifts in response to the availability of females and the density of males, to examine the relationship between the routine metabolic rate (RMR) and the expression of size, body-condition and development rate. We reared immature males in three diet treatments, and in social environments that varied the presence/absence of females and the density of males and measured their RMR, weight, size and developmental rate at maturity. We show that although RMR decreased with decreasing resource abundance, RMR was positively correlated with the density of rivals. Moreover, RMR was not correlated with size or body-condition at maturity. Our results demonstrate that plasticity in the RMR supports plasticity in metric and life-history traits to create an integrated phenotype that matches the competitive environment.