Male body size and mating success in swarms of the mayfly Epeorus longimanus

Abstract

Epeorus longimanus is a widely distributed mayfly in the western United States that forms relatively large mating swarms. The operational sex ratio of swarms is highly male biased and males are potentially polygynous, suggesting that male‐male competition over mates may be intense. We investigated whether body size influenced male mating success in E. longimanus, as evidence of sexual selection. Males collected as mating pairs had significantly greater body lengths compared with males collected randomly from the swarm on each of six sampling dates examined, and had significantly greater head widths than males from random collections on two dates. There was no indication that large males occupied preferred positions within the swarm, and we suspect that the large male advantage may be due to greater success in pursuing females. We found no evidence of size‐assortative mating in E. longimanus indicating that males attempt to male with every female encountered, consistent with the brief copulatory period in mayflies and overall low parental investment of males.