Abstract
Life history traits play an important role in population dynamics and correlate, both positively and negatively, with dispersal in a wide range of taxa. Most invertebrate studies on trade-offs between life history traits and dispersal have focused on dispersal via flight, yet much less is known about how life history trade-offs influence species that disperse by other means. In this study, we identify effects of investing in dispersal morphology (dispersal expression) on life history traits in the male dimorphic bulb mite (Rhizoglyphus robini). This species has a facultative juvenile life stage (deutonymph) during which individuals can disperse by phoresy. Further, adult males are either fighters (which kill other mites) or benign scramblers. Here, in an experiment, we investigate the effects of investing in dispersal on size at maturity, sex and male morph ratio, and female lifetime reproductive success. We show that life history traits correlate negatively with the expression of the dispersal stage. Remarkably, all males that expressed the dispersal life stage developed into competitive fighters and none into scramblers. This suggests that alternative, male reproductive strategies and dispersal should not be viewed in isolation but considered concurrently.
Highlights
Life history traits, such as age and size at maturity, play a crucial role in population dynamics as they directly influence reproduction and survival
We aim to investigate if trade-offs exist between investing in dispersal and life history traits in the bulb mite (Rhizoglyphus robini, Acaridae), a species that disperses by phoresy
As we did not obtain any data on dispersing scramblers all subsequent analyses that compared the life history traits of dispersers and non-dispersers only included data on fighters and females
Summary
Life history traits, such as age and size at maturity, play a crucial role in population dynamics as they directly influence reproduction and survival. Their evolution is constrained by trade-offs [1,2,3]. Studies on wing-monomorphic species have shown that fecundity is higher in dispersive than in sedentary individuals [10, 12, 13]. It has PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0136872 September 1, 2015
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