Enigmatic ornamentation eases male reliance on courtship performance for mating success

Hebets, Eileen A.; Stafstrom, Jay A.; Rodrı́guez, Rafael L.; Wilgers, Dustin J.

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.01.023

Cited by 26 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 77 publications

(99 reference statements)

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“…As in many other Schizocosa species, courtship rate (measured as leg taps/min) is a strong predictor of copulation success in S. stridulans , and it is likely that leg taps correlate with bouts of vibratory signaling. Despite the presence of conspicuous pigmentation, however, previous studies suggest that it is the vibratory component that is necessary and sufficient to elicit copulations (Hebets, 2008;Hebets et al, 2011). Nevertheless, foreleg pigmentation has been found to have an impact on female assessment of male courtship; increased pigmentation is suggested to reduce the strength of female preference for higher courtship rates, allowing more pigmented males to gain copulations at lower rates .…”

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confidence: 85%

“…Female mate choice behavior in wolf spiders is as complex as the male's display. For example, in Rabidosa rabida, female mating decisions may be age or condition dependent (Wilgers & Hebets, 2012), and in both Rabidosa and Schizocosa species, the visual and vibratory components of the male's display can interact to affect the likelihood of copulation (Hebets, Stafstrom, Rodriguez, & Wilgers, 2011;Stafstrom& Hebets, 2013;Wilgers & Hebets, 2012). Components of complex display can also vary in their temporal patterns of nutrition dependence, which can ultimately influence male mating success.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Temporal patterns of nutrition dependence in secondary sexual traits and their varying impacts on male mating success

Rosenthal

Hebets

2015

Animal Behaviour

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confidence: 85%

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confidence: 99%

Temporal patterns of nutrition dependence in secondary sexual traits and their varying impacts on male mating success

Rosenthal

Hebets

2015

Animal Behaviour

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“…Courtship displays are frequently repetitive and vigorous in nature (reviewed in Byers et al, 2010) and there has been increased interest in, and support for, the hypothesis that females choose mates based upon their motor performance during these vigorous, and presumably costly, displays (Husak et al, 2008;Byers et al, 2010 and references therein; Barske et al, 2011;Hebets et al, 2011;Neave et al, 2011;Spencer and MacDougall-Shackleton, 2011). Multiple studies focusing on different Schizocosa species have provided evidence of the importance of courtship rate in Schizocosa female mate choice (Shamble et al, 2009;Hebets et al, 2011;Rundus et al, 2011;Rosenthal and Hebets, 2012).…”

Section: Importance Of Brushesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given that courtship rate is a variable known to be important in the mating success of other Schizocosa species (Delaney et al, 2007;Gibson and Uetz, 2008;Shamble et al, 2009;Hebets et al, 2011;Rundus et al, 2010Rundus et al, , 2011, we used a non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test to determine whether males courted at different rates across the four signaling environments. We conducted the same test on female age since this is another variable known to be important in mate choice in other Schizocosa species (Norton and Uetz, 2005).…”

Section: Experiments 1: Importance Of Signaling Modalitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, not all traits deemed to be ornaments have been found to play a vital role in female mate choice (Saether et al, 2000;Westneat, 2006;Takahashi et al, 2008;Shamble et al, 2009), causing researchers to re-evaluate the putative function of such secondary sexual traits. In lieu of an explanation requiring direct selection on male ornaments, increased support is surfacing for hypotheses suggesting that female mate choice is based upon combinations of traits or signal interactions (Kekäläinen et al, 2010;Grafe et al, 2012;Taylor et al, 2011) and/or upon motor performance, with ornamentation evolving secondarily in an enhancing role (see Byers et al, 2010;Barske et al, 2011;Hebets et al, 2011;Wilgers and Hebets, 2012). The former hypothesis proposes that separate signal components interact in various ways, dependent on signaling system, to alter female response.…”

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Female mate choice for multimodal courtship and the importance of the signaling background for selection on male ornamentation

Stafstrom

Hebets

2013

Current Zoology

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Conspicuous visual ornaments are frequently incorporated into complex courtship displays that integrate signal components from multiple sensory modalities. Mature male Schizocosa crassipes (Walckenaer, 1837) wolf spiders wave, arch, and tap their ornamented forelegs in a visual courtship display that simultaneously incorporates seismic components. To determine the importance of modality-specific signal components in female mate choice, we used a signal ablation design and compared the mating frequency of female-male pairs across signaling environments with manipulated modality-specific transmission properties. We found that the successful transmission of isolated visual or seismic signaling was sufficient for mating success; neither signaling modality was necessary. Additionally, the environment enabling the successful transmission of composite, multimodal displays yielded the highest mating frequencies. Our results indicate the presence of selection from S. crassipes females for multimodal courtship and suggest that multimodal signaling may facilitate mating across variable signaling environments. We next explored the influence of ornamentation per se on female choice by phenotypically manipulating males into two groups: (i) intact (brushes present) and (ii) shaved (brushes absent). We compared the mating frequencies of intact versus shaved males in the presence versus absence of seismic signaling. Males with brushes intact had higher mating frequencies than shaved males, but only under specific signaling conditions -in the presence of seismic signaling. Female choice for male brushes then appears dependent on the signaling background, making brushes themselves an unlikely target of direct selection. Our results emphasize the complex nature of female choice, highlighting the potential for both trait interactions and environment-dependent selection [Current Zoology 59 (2): 200-209, 2013].

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The complexity of mating decisions in stalk‐eyed flies

Chapman

Siriwat

Howie

et al. 2017

Ecology and Evolution

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All too often, studies of sexual selection focus exclusively on the responses in one sex, on single traits, typically those that are exaggerated and strongly sexually dimorphic. They ignore a range of less obvious traits and behavior, in both sexes, involved in the interactions leading to mate choice. To remedy this imbalance, we analyze a textbook example of sexual selection in the stalk‐eyed fly (Diasemopsis meigenii). We studied several traits in a novel, insightful, and efficient experimental design, examining 2,400 male–female pairs in a “round‐robin” array, where each female was tested against multiple males and vice versa. In D. meigenii, females exhibit strong mate preference for males with highly exaggerated eyespan, and so we deliberately constrained variation in male eyespan to reveal the importance of other traits. Males performing more precopulatory behavior were more likely to attempt to mate with females and be accepted by them. However, behavior was not a necessary part of courtship, as it was absent from over almost half the interactions. Males with larger reproductive organs (testes and accessory glands) did not make more mating attempts, but there was a strong tendency for females to accept mating attempts from such males. How females detect differences in male reproductive organ size remains unclear. In addition, females with larger eyespan, an indicator of size and fecundity, attracted more mating attempts from males, but this trait did not alter female acceptance. Genetic variation among males had a strong influence on male mating attempts and female acceptance, both via the traits we studied and other unmeasured attributes. These findings demonstrate the importance of assaying multiple traits in males and females, rather than focusing solely on prominent and exaggerated sexually dimorphic traits. The approach allows a more complete understanding of the complex mating decisions made by both males and females.

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Enigmatic ornamentation eases male reliance on courtship performance for mating success

Cited by 26 publications

References 77 publications

Temporal patterns of nutrition dependence in secondary sexual traits and their varying impacts on male mating success

Temporal patterns of nutrition dependence in secondary sexual traits and their varying impacts on male mating success

Female mate choice for multimodal courtship and the importance of the signaling background for selection on male ornamentation

The complexity of mating decisions in stalk‐eyed flies

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