Allometry of male genitalia in a lepidopteran species, Ostrinia latipennis (Lepidoptera: Crambidae)

Abstract

In species of several insect orders and spiders, it has been shown that the size of male genitalia relative to body size decreases as the body becomes larger (negative allometry), while the relative size of other morphological traits tends to be constant. Such a contrast between genital and somatic traits suggests stabilizing sexual selection on male genitalia: males with small or large genitalia are prone to fail to inseminate females due to incompatibility of their genitalia. In the present study, we tested the contrast between genital and somatic traits for males of a lepidopteran insect, Ostrinia latipennis. We examined allometry of five genital and 11 somatic traits for each of three local populations of O. latipennis. Of the 15 allometric slopes for genital traits, 14 showed significantly negative allometry, whereas none of the 33 slopes for somatic traits represented negative allometry. These results showed that the size of male genitalia in O. latipennis is more stable than the size of somatic traits against changes in body size. This study supports Eberhard et al.'s (1998) hypothesis which states that the low genital allometry in insects and spiders is caused by sexual selection. Based on currently available information on genital morphology and sexual communication in O. latipennis, it seems unlikely that the lock-and-key hypothesis is responsible for the stable genital size in this species.

Pheromone production, male abundance, body size, and the evolution of elaborate antennae in moths

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Evolution of the male genitalia: morphological variation of the aedeagi in a natural population of Drosophila mediopunctata

“…There are several hypotheses for explaining the evolution of male genitalia (Eberhard 1990(Eberhard , 2004(Eberhard , 2005Lüpold et al 2004;Hosken and Stockley 2004). However, they may be grouped on three main hypotheses: lock-andkey (cited in Scudder 1971 andin Shapiro andPorter 1989;Ohno et al 2003;Sirot 2003), pleiotropy (Mayr 1963) and sexual selection (Eberhard 1990(Eberhard , 1993Rowe et al 1994;Arnqvist 1997;Arnqvist and Thornhill 1998;Bond et al 2003;Polihronakis 2006;Wenninger and Averill 2006). Arnqvist (1997) presented, in a seminal paper, some predictions to be expected for each of these hypotheses, particularly in studies dealing with a single population of a given species.…”

“…The three major hypotheses for male genitalia evolution make different predictions concerning the morphological variation and correlations between aedeagus and body characters to be found in a single population (Arnqvist 1997(Arnqvist , 1998Ohno et al 2003;Bertin and Fairbairn 2007). Looking at the phenotypic variation, phenotypic plasticity of the aedeagus and correlation to other organs: (a) the lock-and-key hypothesis predicts very little phenotypic variation, little plasticity and virtually no correlation between the measurements of aedeagus and other organs, especially regarding size; (b) the pleiotropy hypothesis expects variation comparable to the other organs and high correlations to other organs, which would be under selection, both for size and shape; (c) the sexual selection hypothesis predicts variation larger than in the other organs and no correlations are expected, neither for size nor for shape-although they are not necessarily precluded.…”

The lock-and-key mechanisms of the internal genitalia of the Noctuidae (Lepidoptera): How are they selected for?

“…That in the Holarctic the external genitalia diverge less than the internal genitalia (Chapter 5) is further proof against sexual selection acting on allopatric species. The negatively allometric growth and small amount of variation in genitalia (see Ohno et al, 2003;Mutanen et al, 2006;Mutanen & Kaitala, 2006) also do not conform with cryptic female choice proposed by Eberhard (1996). I fully agree with Arnqvist (1997) that negative allometry is what is expected from LKMs.…”