Aggressive males are more attractive to females and more likely to win contests in jumping spiders

Kwek, Bernetta Zi Wei; Tan, Min; Yu, Long; Zhou, Wei; Chang, Chia-Chen; Li, Daiqin

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2021.06.030

Cited by 12 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 75 publications

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“…Thus, when developing under high feed conditions, individuals may be able to develop the same level of behaviour predictability across a range of contexts, whilst this may become decoupled under low feed conditions. This may be because behavioural predictability is energetically costly and can only be sustained across contexts by individuals with sufficient resources (Kwek et al 2021; Mitchell et al 2021b). It is also important to highlight that although we measured the total distance tadpoles swam in two contexts which differed in their novelty, we did not identify behavioural or plasticity syndromes between the two contexts under either of the development environments.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Food availability early in life impacts among and within individual variation in behaviour

Beyts

Martin

Colegrave

et al. 2023

Preprint

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1. The availability of food during early life has been proposed as a key proximate mechanism for the development of variation in behaviour among and within individuals. 2. Individuals can vary amongst each other in their personality, plasticity and predictability and if an individuals behaviour is correlated across contexts this can lead to behavioural, plasticity and predictability syndromes. 3. In this study, we used a split brood design to raise African clawed frog tadpoles (Xenopus laevis) on a high or low diet in food availability and measured the distance they swam in a familiar and unfamiliar context eight times during their development. 4. In a familiar context, we found that there was an increase in among individual variance in plasticity and predictability in the high food treatment. This shows that when resources are not restricted, individuals are not constrained in the expression of their behaviour at certain phenotypic levels. 5. In an unfamiliar context, we found a different response, with an increase in individual variance in personality in the low but not the high feed tadpoles. As unfamiliar contexts may be riskier, our results highlight that individuals receiving less food may take greater foraging risks in novel contexts. 6. Across contexts, we found a predictability syndrome in the high but not the low feed tadpoles, highlighting that cross-context behaviours can become decoupled in some developmental conditions but remain intact in others. 7. Together our findings show that early life conditions contribute to among individual variation in behaviour but that these may only impact the phenotype at specific phenotypic levels and are context specific. 8. We emphasise that having a fundamental understanding of how early development may promote or constrain individual variation can provide a greater understanding of how individuals and populations may respond to novel conditions brought about by anthropogenic activity.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Food availability early in life impacts among and within individual variation in behaviour

Beyts

Martin

Colegrave

et al. 2023

Preprint

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“…Two male chambers were separated by an opaque wall to control for the effect of male–male competition on female mate‐choice. The female chamber was separated from each male chamber by a full spectrum glass, allowing them to see each other's full spectral colours (Kwek et al, 2021; Zhou et al, 2021). Prior to the trial, we introduced spiders to the dichotomous mate‐choice arena with an opaque barrier between the males and the females to prevent any visual contact during acclimatisation for 5 min.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Female preference for males with lower pattern contrast follows Weber's law of proportional processing in jumping spiders

Kwek

Zhou

et al. 2023

Functional Ecology

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According to Weber's law of proportional processing, perceptual discrimination between stimuli of different magnitudes is based on their proportional differences in magnitude (not absolute differences). Proportional processing operates in various sensory modalities and behavioural contexts. However, whether female mate preference for colour patterns in animals follows Weber's law of proportional processing remains untested. We addressed this research gap using the jade jumping spider, Siler semiglaucus, whose males exhibit remarkable sexually selected colour patterns and whose females show preferences for males with low abdomen pattern contrast (pattern contrast is defined as the spatial feature of the relative abundance of two adjacent colour patches). By manipulating the dorsal abdomen colour patterns of S. semiglaucus males, we created males with varying abdomen pattern contrasts. We then assessed female preference for males that varied in both absolute and proportional differences in pattern contrast. We found that females preferred males with lower abdomen pattern contrasts and discriminated between males based on both absolute and proportional differences in pattern contrast. While proportional difference alone was not a significant predictor of female mate‐choice, discrimination based on proportional difference coupled with absolute difference had a greater influence on female mate preference than absolute difference alone. Hence, our findings suggest that S. semiglaucus female preference for males with lower pattern contrast follows Weber's law, and female discrimination may have the potential to limit the exaggeration of sexually selected colour patterns. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

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“…We returned the males to their individual cages after the contest trial. We wiped the whole arena with 75% ethanol before carrying out contest trials with new individuals to eliminate chemical cues left by previous spiders ( Kwek et al 2021 ). We carried out a total of 25 contest trials in the spider laboratory between 0900 and 1700 h. Spiders were paired at random and no spider was used more than once.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Males armed with big weapons win fights at limited cost in ant-mimicking jumping spiders

Wong

Painting

et al. 2022

Current Zoology

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A core assumption of sexual selection theory is that sexually selected weapons, specialized morphological structures used directly in male contests, can improve an individual’s reproductive success but only if the bearer can overcome associated costs, the negative effects on the bearer’s fitness components. However, recent studies have shown that producing and wielding exaggerated weapons may not necessarily be costly. Rather, some traits can be selected for supporting, or compensating for, the expense of producing and wielding such exaggerated weapons. In the ant-mimicking jumping spider Myrmarachne gisti, exaggerated chelicerae are borne only by adult males and not females, showing sexual dimorphism and steep positive allometry with body size. Here, we determine the potential benefits of bearing exaggerated chelicerae during male contests and explore the potential for costs in terms of prey-capture efficiency and compensation between chelicera size and neighbouring trait size. While males with longer chelicerae won most of their male-male contests, we found no significant differences in prey-capture efficiency between males and females regardless of whether prey were winged or flightless. Males’ elongated chelicerae thus do not impede their efficiency at capturing prey. Furthermore, we found that the sizes of all neighbouring traits are positively correlated with chelicera size, suggesting that these traits may be under correlational selection. Taken together, our findings suggest that M. gisti males armed with the exaggerated chelicerae that function as weapons win more fights at limited cost for performance in prey-capture and compensate for neighbouring structures.

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Aggressive males are more attractive to females and more likely to win contests in jumping spiders

Cited by 12 publications

References 75 publications

Food availability early in life impacts among and within individual variation in behaviour

Food availability early in life impacts among and within individual variation in behaviour

Female preference for males with lower pattern contrast follows Weber's law of proportional processing in jumping spiders

Males armed with big weapons win fights at limited cost in ant-mimicking jumping spiders

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