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Cost of reproduction in male medflies: The primacy of sexual courting in extreme longevity reduction
- Source :
- Journal of Insect Physiology. 56:283-287
- Publication Year :
- 2010
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2010.
-
Abstract
- In polygynous insect species, male reproductive success is directly related to lifetime mating success. However, the costs for males of sexual activities such as courting, signaling, and mating are largely unknown. We studied the cost of sexual activities in male Mediterranean fruit flies, Ceratitis capitata (Tephritidae), a polygynous lekking species, by keeping cohorts of individual male flies under relaxed crowding conditions in the laboratory. We used 5 cohorts among which individuals differed in their opportunities to interact with con-specifics and recorded life span, and in one treatment, mating rate. We found that males kept singly lived more than twice as long as males that interacted intensively with mature virgin females, while male–male interactions caused a smaller reduction in longevity. Because longevity of males that could court but not mate was not significantly different from those that could court and mate, we conclude that courting (not mating) was responsible for the observed longevity reduction. Moreover, we detected high variability in male mating success, when 5 virgin females were offered daily. In contrast to the cohort level, individual males that mated at a high rate lived relatively long, thus indicating heterogeneity in quality or sexual strategy among males.
- Subjects :
- Male
Physiology
media_common.quotation_subject
Longevity
Article
Courtship
Sexual Behavior, Animal
Lek mating
Species Specificity
Tephritidae
Animals
Mating
reproductive and urinary physiology
media_common
biology
Reproductive success
Ecology
Reproduction
Ceratitis capitata
biology.organism_classification
Insect Science
Female
Demography
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 00221910
- Volume :
- 56
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Insect Physiology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....93c250e66bb9d2bebdb758177205b9c8