Abstract
Trade-offs between life-history traits offset the energetic costs of maintaining fitness in complex environments. Ceratitis species have been recorded to have long lifespans, which may have evolved in response to seasonal resource fluctuation. It is thus likely that reproductive patterns have evolved concomitantly as part of the trade-off between lifespan and reproduction. In this study, we investigated how reproductive patterns differ between Ceratitis cosyra (Walker) and Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann; Diptera: Tephritidae), two species with different average and maximum lifespans. Females of both species were mated and patterns of female survival, fecundity, remating and sperm storage were tested. Ceratitis cosyra had a higher rate of survival and a lower fecundity when compared with the shorter-lived C. capitata, suggesting that both species exhibit a trade-off between lifespan and reproduction. Both species showed a similar and consistent willingness to remate, despite declines in sperm storage, suggesting that sperm alone does not fully inhibit remating. As expected, C. cosyra transferred high numbers of sperm during the first mating. However, sperm stores declined unexpectedly by 14 days. This indicates that males might transfer large ejaculates as a nuptial gift, that females then later degrade as a source of nutrients. Large declines in sperm storage may also indicate that females discard excess sperm stores due to the toxicity involved with storing sperm. These results do not suggest that patterns of sperm storage and remating align with lifespan and resource seasonality in these species, but a wider range of species needs to be assessed to better understand variation in Ceratitis mating systems.
Highlights
The traits and characteristics that make up an organism’s lifestyle are known as its life-history (Braendle et al, 2011)
In this study we aimed to determine how reproductive traits and patterns vary in two Ceratitis species of different lifespan
A higher survival and lower rate of fecundity and fertility were observed in C. cosyra than in the more generalised C. capitata, with the peak in fecundity and fertility in C. cosyra occurring later than that of C. capitata
Summary
The traits and characteristics that make up an organism’s lifestyle are known as its life-history (Braendle et al, 2011). Life histories evolve as a set of compromises between traits to best reflect evolutionary fitness in an organism’s natural environment (Wilbur et al, 1974; Partridge and Sibly, 1991) This evolutionary fitness is expressed through variation in individual survival. Selective pressures rarely occur independently, with individuals being far more likely to face several interlinking selective pressures at once (Luhring et al, 2019) This can have complex influences on life-history traits (Bandara et al, 2019). Aspects of environmental variation, such as resource availability, act as a major selective pressure in the evolution of life-history traits (Suryan et al, 2009; Arlettaz et al, 2017; Craig et al, 2017) This can influence the survival and reproduction of species, which can in turn have significant impacts on population dynamics (Karell et al, 2009). Some long-lived species may have evolved an increased lifespan as a mechanism to overcome environmental selective pressures, possibly to facilitate better synchronisation with host phenology (Malod et al, 2020)
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