Journal article
Male responses to sperm competition when rivals vary in number and familiarity
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, Vol.286(1895), Art. 20182589
Summer 2019
Abstract
Males of many species adjust their reproductive investment to the number of rivals present simultaneously. However, few studies have investigated whether males sum previous encounters with rivals, and the total level of competition has never been explicitly separated from social familiarity. Social familiarity can be an important component of kin recognition and has been suggested as a cue that males use to avoid harming females when competing with relatives. Previous work has succeeded in independently manipulating social familiarity and relatedness among rivals, but experimental manipulations of familiarity are confounded with manipulations of the total number of rivals that males encounter. Using the seed beetle Callosobruchus maculatus, we manipulated three factors: familiarity among rival males, the maximum number of rivals encountered simultaneously and the total number of rivals encountered over a 48 h period. Males produced smaller ejaculates when exposed to more rivals in total, regardless of the maximum number of rivals they encountered simultaneously. Males did not respond to familiarity. Our results demonstrate that males of this species can sum the number of rivals encountered over separate days, and therefore the confounding of familiarity with the total level of competition in previous studies should not be ignored.
Details
- Title
- Male responses to sperm competition when rivals vary in number and familiarity
- Authors/Creators
- Samuel J Lymbery (Author)Joseph L Tomkins (Author) - The University of Western AustraliaLeigh W. Simmons (Author)
- Publication Details
- Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, Vol.286(1895), Art. 20182589
- Publisher
- Royal Society
- Identifiers
- 991005553267607891
- Copyright
- © 2019 The Author(s)
- Murdoch Affiliation
- Murdoch University
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article
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- Citation topics
- 3 Agriculture, Environment & Ecology
- 3.35 Zoology & Animal Ecology
- 3.35.434 Sexual Selection
- Web Of Science research areas
- Biology
- Ecology
- Evolutionary Biology
- ESI research areas
- Plant & Animal Science