Abstract
The reproductive interests of females and males often diverge in terms of the number of mating partners, an individual’s phenotype, origin, genes, and parental investment. This conflict may lead to a variety of sex‐specific adaptations and also affect mate choice in both sexes. We conducted an experiment with the bush‐cricket Pholidoptera griseoaptera (Orthoptera, Tettigoniidae), a species in which females receive direct nutritional benefits during mating. Mated individuals could be assigned due to the genotype of male spermatodoses, which are stored in the female’s spermatheca. After 3 weeks of possible copulations in established mating groups which were random replications with four females and males we did not find consistent assortative mating preference regarding to body size of mates. However, our results showed that the frequency of within‐pair copulations (192 analyzed mating events in 128 possible pairwise combinations) was positively associated with the body size of both mated individuals with significant interaction between sexes (having one mate very large, association between body size and the number of copulations has weaken). Larger individuals also showed a higher degree of polygamy. This suggests that body size of this nuptial gift‐giving insect species is an important sexual trait according to which both sexes choose their optimal mating partner.
Highlights
Choosing an optimal partner for mating is a problem of an extraor‐ dinary complexity
Using an experimental laboratory setup that allowed pair assignment of each copulation and to estimate female’s benefits from and males’ investments into copulations, we aimed in our study (a) to analyze the frequency of individual copulations and the degree of po‐ lygamy of each sex, (b) to test size‐assortative mating, and (c) to model the number of within‐pair copulations in relation to the phenotype of mating partners in the dark bush‐cricket Pholidoptera griseoaptera
The frequency of within‐pair copulations in pairs of Pholidoptera griseoaptera is explained by three fixed factors and their significant second‐order interaction, respectively
Summary
Choosing an optimal partner for mating is a problem of an extraor‐ dinary complexity. Bush‐crickets (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae) provide unique opportunities to test var‐ ious hypotheses on mechanisms behind entangled mating patterns Their nuptial gifts are produced and transferred by males during copulation in the form of a nutritious spermatophylax attached to the sperm‐containing ampulla, both comprising a spermatophore (Gwynne, 1995, 1997; Vahed, 2007a, 2007b; Wedell & Ritchie, 2004). The bush‐cricket mating system cannot be considered as a simple collaboration between the sexes, with females receiving a nutritional substance and males protecting their ejaculates (Gwynne, 2001) It is a permanent sexual conflict in which the sexes have different demands for spermatophore quality and size (Arnqvist & Rowe, 2005; Gwynne, 2008; Parker, 2006; Vahed & Gilbert, 1996; Vahed, 2007a). Using an experimental laboratory setup that allowed pair assignment of each copulation and to estimate female’s benefits from and males’ investments into copulations, we aimed in our study (a) to analyze the frequency of individual copulations and the degree of po‐ lygamy of each sex, (b) to test size‐assortative mating, and (c) to model the number of within‐pair copulations in relation to the phenotype of mating partners in the dark bush‐cricket Pholidoptera griseoaptera
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