Abstract
Mating failure, characterized by the lack of production of offspring following copulation, is relatively common across taxa yet is little understood. It is unclear whether mating failures are stochastic occurrences between incompatible mating partners or represent a persistent, meaningful phenotype on the part of one or other sex. Here we test this in the seed bug Lygaeus simulans, by sequentially mating families of males with randomly allocated unrelated females and calculating the repeatability of mating outcome for each individual male and family. Mating outcome is significantly repeatable within individual males but not across full‐sib brothers. We conclude that mating failure represents a consistent male‐associated phenotype with low heritability in this species, affected by as yet undetermined environmental influences on males.
Highlights
Why do so many matings fail? Given that successful fertilization is the raison d’^etre of mating and should be a focus of both natural and sexual selection, relatively frequent failure to convert matings into fertilizations in the absence of competitors is something of an evolutionary enigma
Lygaeus simulans fifth instar nymphs were collected from a laboratory stock population and raised to adulthood at a temperature of 29 °C and under a 22:2-h light:dark cycle to prevent the initiation of reproductive diapause
When any males that mated with a female who did not lay eggs were excluded from analysis, levels of repeatability increased individual male mating outcome repeatability (n = 45, R = 0.464 Æ SE 0.11, P = 0.001)
Summary
Given that successful fertilization is the raison d’^etre of mating and should be a focus of both natural and sexual selection, relatively frequent failure to convert matings into fertilizations in the absence of competitors is something of an evolutionary enigma. The costs of both achieving and carrying out matings to both males and females are well documented (Thornhill & Alcock, 1983; Wedell et al, 2002), and selection to capitalize on matings is apparent in the evolution of a huge diversity of genital and sperm morphologies and peri- and post-copulatory behaviours (Eberhard, 1996; Simmons, 2001). The precise mechanisms for such failures and the fitness consequences for individuals remain unclear
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