Different environments lead to a reversal in the expression of weapons and testes in the heliconia bug,<i>Leptoscelis tricolor</i>(Hemiptera: Coreidae)

Somjee, Ummat; Allen, Pablo E.; Miller, Charles H.

doi:10.1111/bij.12544

Cited by 24 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…This could shift the relative allocation of resources to sperm competitiveness versus attractive ornaments [40]. For example, greater investment in larger body size or weaponry can result in smaller testes and ejaculates [41, 42]. …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are sexually selected traits affected by a poor environment early in life?

2016

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BackgroundChallenging conditions experienced early in life, such as a restricted diet, can detrimentally affect key life-history traits. Individuals can reduce these costs by delaying their sexual maturation, albeit at the price of the later onset of breeding, to eventually reach the same adult size as individuals that grow up in a benevolent environment. Delayed maturation can, however, still lead to other detrimental morphological and physiological changes that become apparent later in adulthood (e.g. shorter lifespan, faster senescence). In general, research focuses on the naturally selected costs of a poor early diet. In mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki), males with limited food intake early in life delay maturation to reach a similar adult body size to their well-fed counterparts (‘catch-up growth’). Here we tested whether a poor early diet is costly due to the reduced expression of sexually selected male characters, namely genital size and ejaculate traits.ResultsWe found that a male’s diet early in life significantly influenced his sperm reserves and sperm replenishment rate. Shortly after maturation males with a restricted early diet had significantly lower sperm reserves and slower replenishment rates than control diet males, but this dietary difference was no longer detectable in older males.ConclusionsAlthough delaying maturation to reach the same body size as well fed juveniles can ameliorate some costs of a poor start in life, our findings suggest that costs might still arise because of sexual selection against these males. It should be noted, however, that the observed effects are modest (Hedges’ g = 0.20–0.36), and the assumption that lower sperm production translates into a decline in fitness under sperm competition remains unconfirmed.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12862-016-0838-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are sexually selected traits affected by a poor environment early in life?

2016

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“…Developmental diet is now known to have a large effect on the phenotypes of adults in many Coreidae, including effects on size, shape, internal anatomy, attractiveness to conspecifics, and mating behaviors [8,35,41,42,43,44]. A developmental diet with cactus fruit is very important for juvenile N. femorata [34].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal Effects on the Population, Morphology and Reproductive Behavior of Narnia femorata (Hemiptera: Coreidae)

Cirino

Miller

2017

Insects

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Many insects are influenced by the phenology of their host plants. In North Central Florida, Narnia femorata (Hemiptera: Coreidae) spends its entire life cycle living and feeding on Opuntia mesacantha ssp. lata. This cactus begins producing flower buds in April that lead to unripe green fruit in June that ripen into red fruit through December. Many morphological and behavioral characteristics of N. femorata are known to be affected by cactus phenology in a controlled laboratory setting, including the degree of sexual dimorphism and mating behavior. Our goal with this study was to determine if similar phenotypic changes of N. femorata occurred over time in the wild, and the extent to which these changes were concordant with phenological changes in its host plant. Further, we investigate the length of the insect mouthparts (beak) over time. Ongoing work has suggested that beak length may change across cohorts of developing insects in response to feeding deep within cactus fruit where seed and pulp depth decrease as the fruit ripens. Our results revealed a drop in cactus fruit abundance between the months of July through October 2015 as cactus fruits turned red and ripened. Simultaneously, the average body size of both males and females of N. femorata declined at two sampled sites. Male hind femora (a sexually-selected weapon) decreased disproportionately in size over time so that males later in the year had relatively smaller hind femora for their body size. The sex-specific patterns of morphological change led to increased sexual-size dimorphism and decreased sexual dimorphism for hind femora later in the year. Further, we found that beak length decreased across cohorts of insects as cactus fruit ripened, suggesting phenotypic plasticity in mouthpart length. Behavioral studies revealed that female readiness to mate increased as the season progressed. In sum, we found pronounced changes in the phenotypes of these insects in the field. Although this study is far from comprehensive, it provides tantalizing patterns that suggest many directions for future research.

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“…These negative interspecific correlations mirror the tradeoff between body size (or weaponry) and relative testis size that is often observed within species (Moczek & Nijhout 2004;Simmons & Emlen 2006;Kelly 2008;Parker & Pizzari 2010;Yamane et al 2010, Somjee et al 2015. However, our results stand in contrast to other comparative studies that have documented non-significant or even positive interspecific correlations between the targets of pre-and postcopulatory sexual selection in bushcrickets (Wedell 1993), ungulates (Ferrandiz-Rovira et al 2014Lüpold et al 2014) and a variety of other vertebrate and invertebrate taxa (Lüpold et al 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 58%

“…Variation in the local environment can affect the expression of sexually selected traits via both phenotypic plasticity (Griffith et al, 1999;Harris and Moore, 2004;Karubian et al, 2011;Somjee et al, 2015) and genetic adaptation (Boughman, 2001;Hettyey and Roberts, 2005). As an example of the former, native Anolis sagrei males vary in sperm count and sperm morphology as a function of their body condition, and this variance can also be induced by dietary manipulation (Chapter 4), suggesting that population differences in prey availability or local environmental quality could generate intraspecific variation in sperm phenotypes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to the potential role of precopulatory selection in limiting the opportunity for postcopulatory selection, such negative interspecific correlations could also arise from (or be strengthened by) energetic tradeoffs between sexually selected traits (Moczek & Nijhout 2004;Simmons & Emlen 2006;Kelly 2008;Parker & Pizzari 2010;Yamane et al 2010;Somjee et al 2015). However, analyses in other taxa have found no evidence for negative interspecific correlations between targets of pre-and postcopulatory selection (Ferrandiz-Rovira et al 2014;Lüpold et al 2014), and several studies have documented positive correlations (Wedell 1993;Lüpold et al 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Diversity, Plasticity, and Evolution of Sperm Morphology in Anolis Lizards

Kahrl

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Different environments lead to a reversal in the expression of weapons and testes in the heliconia bug,Leptoscelis tricolor(Hemiptera: Coreidae)

Cited by 24 publications

References 68 publications

Are sexually selected traits affected by a poor environment early in life?

Are sexually selected traits affected by a poor environment early in life?

Seasonal Effects on the Population, Morphology and Reproductive Behavior of Narnia femorata (Hemiptera: Coreidae)

The Diversity, Plasticity, and Evolution of Sperm Morphology in Anolis Lizards

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