Male mate choice in a sexually cannibalistic species: male escapes from hungry females in the praying mantid Tenodera angustipennis

Mika Kadoi,Yasuoki Takami,Kotaro Morimoto

doi:10.1007/s10164-017-0506-z

Abstract

While competing males and choosy females may be common in animal mating systems, male choice can evolve under certain conditions. Sexual cannibalism is such a condition because of the high mortality risk for males. In mantids, female body condition is associated with male mate preference, with fat females preferred, due to at least two reasons: females in poor nutritional condition are likely to attack and predate males, and fat females can potentially increase the number of offspring. Thus, the risk of cannibalism and female fecundity can influence male mating behavior. In this study, we attempted to separate these factors by using the praying mantid Tenodera angustipennis to examine whether male preference for fat female mantids was based on avoiding sexual cannibalism (cannibalism avoidance hypothesis) or preference for female fecundity (fecundity preference hypothesis). The feeding regimes were experimentally manipulated to discriminate between the effects of female fecundity and female hunger status on male and female mating behaviors. We found that recently starved females more frequently locomoted toward the male, and that male abdominal bending was less intensive and escape was sooner from recently starved females. These female and male behavioral responses to female hunger condition may reveal male avoidance of dangerous females in this mantid.

Highlights

Competing males and choosy females are typical sex roles in animal mating (Andersson 1994), with the likely ultimate cause being anisogametic reproduction: males produce many tiny sperm, but females produce few large eggs
Female body condition is associated with male mate preference, with fat females preferred, due to at least two reasons: females in poor nutritional condition are likely to attack and predate males, and fat females can potentially increase the number of offspring
Species that engage in sexual cannibalism are likely to satisfy these conditions (Elgar and Schneider 2004): the opportunity for male multiple mating is limited because of the risk of sexual cannibalism (Andrade 1996, 1998), the variation in nutritional condition and hunger status among predatory females may be large (Barry 2013), and avoidance of sexual cannibalism can be beneficial for males because of future mating opportunities (Moya-Larano et al 2004; Fromhage and Schneider 2005; Gemeno and Claramunt 2006; Lelito and Brown 2006; Barry et al 2009; Scardamaglia et al 2015)

Summary

Introduction

Competing males and choosy females are typical sex roles in animal mating (Andersson 1994), with the likely ultimate cause being anisogametic reproduction: males produce many tiny sperm, but females produce few large eggs. Choosy males, i.e., male mate choice, have evolved in various groups of animals (Bonduriansky 2001). Sexual cannibalism is a strong cause of sexual conflict (Elgar 1992; Elgar and Schneider 2004; Schneider 2014), and the fitness cost to predated males is large with the loss of future mating opportunities (Elgar 1992; Johns and Maxwell 1997; Elgar and Schneider 2004).

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