Traumatic mating (or copulatory wounding) is an extreme form of sexual conflict whereby male genitalia physically harm females during mating. In such species females are expected to evolve counter-adaptations to reduce male-induced harm. Importantly, female counter-adaptations may include both genital and non-genital traits. In this study, we examine evolutionary associations between harmful male genital morphology and female reproductive tract morphology and immune function across 13 populations of the seed beetle We detected positive correlated evolution between the injuriousness of male genitalia and putative female resistance adaptations across populations. Moreover, we found evidence for a negative relationship between female immunity and population productivity, which suggests that investment in female resistance may be costly due to the resource trade-offs that are predicted between immunity and reproduction. Finally, the degree of female tract scarring (harm to females) was greater in those populations with both longer aedeagal spines and a thinner female tract lining. Our results are thus consistent with a sexual arms race, which is only apparent when both male and female traits are taken into account. Importantly, our study provides rare evidence for sexually antagonistic coevolution of male and female traits at the within-species level.

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In response to the reduction in fitness associated with sperm competition, males are expected to evolve tactics that hinder female remating. For example, females often display a postmating reduction in their sexual receptivity that has been shown to be mediated by proteins contained in a male’s seminal fluid (sfps). However, although there has been comprehensive research on sfps in genetically well-characterized species, few nonmodel species have been studied in such detail. We initially confirm that female Australian field crickets, Teleogryllus oceanicus, do display a significant reduction in their mate-searching behavior 24 h after mating. This effect was still apparent 3 days after mating but was entirely absent after 1 week. We then attempted to identify the sfps that might play a role in inducing this behavioral response. We identified two proteins, ToSfp022 and ToSfp011, that were associated with the alteration in female postmating behavior. The knockdown of both proteins resulted in mated females that displayed a significant increase in their mate-searching behaviors compared with females mated to males having the full compliment of seminal fluid proteins in their ejaculate. Our results indicate that the female refractory period in T. oceanicus likely reflects a sperm competition avoidance tactic by males, achieved through the action of male seminal fluid proteins.

The pace-of-life syndrome (POLS) hypothesis considers an animal’s behavior, physiology, and life history as nonindependent components of a single integrated phenotype. However, frequent deviations from the expected correlations between POLS traits suggest that these relationships may be context, and potentially, sex dependent. To determine whether the sexes express distinct POLS trait covariance structures, we observed the behavior (mobility, latency to emerge from a shelter), physiology (mass-specific metabolic rate), and life history (life span, development time) of male and female Australian field crickets (Teleogryllus oceanicus). Path analysis modeling suggested that POLS trait covariation differed between the sexes. Although neither sex displayed the complete integration of traits predicted by the POLS hypothesis, females did display greater overall integration with a significant negative correlation between metabolic rate and risk-taking behavior but with life-history traits varying independently. In males, however, there was no clear association between traits. These results suggest that T. oceanicus do indeed display sex-specific trait covariance structures, emphasizing the importance of acknowledging sex in assessments of POLS.

1. Environmentally mediated nongenetic inheritance extends the concept of phenotypic plasticity across generations, allowing for the experience of parents to influence the physiology, life history and behaviour of their offspring.2. We assess whether the perceived social environment of mothers and fathers impacts offspring behaviour in the Australian field cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus.3. We varied parents' perception of the density of conspecific males by exposing parents to either the presence or absence of male song throughout rearing. Following mating in a factorial design, the offspring of the parental pairs were also reared across the two acoustic environments and their behaviour assessed as adults.4. When reared in a no-song environment, offspring of both sexes were more active, emerging from a shelter sooner and displaying greater mobility in search of male song. 5. Offspring behaviour was not directly impacted by either the maternal or paternal social environments independently, but there was a significant interaction effect between the parental environments on the behaviour of daughters. When both parents were reared in song ('paternal song × maternal song'), their no-song-reared daughters exhibited lower levels of mobility than the no-song-reared daughters of 'paternal song × maternal no-song' and 'paternal no-song × maternal song' pairs. 6. Although our data suggest that nongenetic parental effects may have the potential to drive behavioural variability in offspring, such effects are highly complex, only arising as sex-and context-specific traits.