Abstract
The absence of species that show facultative variation in reproductive mode within populations1–4 has thus far severely hindered study of the selective pressures associated with oviparity and viviparity. Here I report that females of the mycophagous thrips Elaphrothrips tuberculatus (Insecta: Thysanoptera) are facultatively viviparous and produce male offspring by viviparity and female offspring by oviparity. Individual females can switch between the two reproductive modes. Females produce fewer offspring when viviparous than when oviparous, but the survivorship of viviparous offspring is sufficiently high that the average number of pupal offspring produced by females in each mode is similar. Facultatively viviparous thrips provide the first experimental systems for analysing the behavioural, ecological and physiological causes of variation in reproductive mode.
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