Abstract
BackgroundSince females often pay a higher cost for heterospecific matings, mate discrimination and species recognition are driven primarily by female choice. In contrast, frequent indiscriminate matings are hypothesized to maximize male fitness. However, recent studies show that previously indiscriminate males (e.g., Drosophila melanogaster and Poecilia reticulata) can learn to avoid heterospecific courtship. This ability of males to discriminate against heterospecific courtship may be advantageous in populations where two species co-occur if courtship or mating is costly.ResultsHere, we tested whether Drosophila pseudoobscura males learn to discriminate against heterospecific females after being exposed to and rejected by D. persimilis females. In most of our assays, we failed to observe differences in D. pseudoobscura courtship intensity of heterospecific females by males that had previously courted heterospecific females vs. males that had been maintained in isolation.ConclusionWe conclude that learning to avoid heterospecific courtship may not be universal, even within the genus Drosophila, and may possibly be dependent on the natural history of the species.
Highlights
Since females often pay a higher cost for heterospecific matings, mate discrimination and species recognition are driven primarily by female choice
If D. pseudoobscura males learn to avoid courting heterospecifics after earlier exposure, we predict that the "experienced" males should exhibit 1) a longer courtship latency, 2) fewer courtship wing vibrations, and 3) fewer attempted copulations than the "naïve" males
Across most of our mating experiments, we did not observe differences in Drosophila pseudoobscura courtship intensity of heterospecific females by males that had previously courted heterospecific females vs. males that had been maintained in isolation
Summary
Since females often pay a higher cost for heterospecific matings, mate discrimination and species recognition are driven primarily by female choice. The complex behaviors associated with mating allow organisms to choose the best mate and/or to distinguish between species The evolution of these behaviors is hypothesized to be driven by female choice because of the larger reproductive investment into eggs relative to sperm. Males often invest little in reproduction and are predicted to be less discriminate with respect to their mating partners; their fitness will be maximized by mating with as many females as possible, and the costs of mating with heterospecifics may be much less These oversimplifications ignore male investment of time and effort into courtship rituals that either result in no mating or in sterile progeny. If the courtship or reproductive investment is substantial [e.g. nuptial gifts in insects [2]], or if time for mating is limited because of a short reproductive window, (page number not for citation purposes)
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