Male Age and Experience Increases Mating Success but Not Female Fitness in the Mexican Fruit Fly

Abstract

Male age and sexual experience are important condition parameters that can influence mate choice and female fitness, yet they are seldom studied simultaneously. Here, we investigated the effect of male age and previous sexual experience on mating success and female fitness in the Mexican fruit fly, Anastrepha ludens (Diptera: Tephritidae). Males were either young or old, sexually experienced or naïve. Older and sexually experienced males obtained more copulations. However, females did not receive benefits in terms of lifetime fecundity, fertility, or longevity from mating with these males. Results suggest that males become more competitive as they age and gain sexual experience and may be able to maintain a high quality ejaculate compared to young males. Older experienced males may be manipulating females into preferentially mating with them at no benefit to females. Alternatively, females may prefer mating with older more experienced males and possibly receive other indirect benefits, but this remains to be tested.

Female Age Determines Remating Behavior in Wild Mexican Fruit Flies

“…This last finding is consistent with previous studies in this species (Pérez-Staples et al 2010). Despite the fact that middleaged males had longer latencies to mate, their mating success was higher compared to older males.…”

“…Despite the fact that middleaged males had longer latencies to mate, their mating success was higher compared to older males. A higher mating success for middle-aged males corresponds to previous field cage studies for this species were 36 d-old non-virgin males had higher mating success, compared with 18 d-old males (Pérez-Staples et al 2010). However, in that study 36-d old males were the old males and no further ages were tested.…”

“…Older sexually experienced males (36 d-old) have increased mating success compared to younger males (18 d-old), although no benefits in terms of fecundity or fertility for their mates were found (Pérez-Staples et al 2010). Male age did not affect copulation duration (Pérez-Staples et al 2010), but female age did; older females had longer copulation durations than younger females .…”

“…Specially, it can affect copulation duration (Koref-Santibanez 2001;Pérez-Staples et al 2008, mating success (Zuk 1988;Jones 2000;Jones and Elgar 2004;Fricke and Maklakov 2007;Pérez-Staples et al 2010;Papanastasiou et al 2011) and sperm traits (Taylor et al 2001;Pérez-Staples et al 2008;Papanastasiou et al 2011;Costa et al 2012;Decanini et al 2013;Santhosh and Krishna 2013). Females may prefer to mate with young males as they have less deleterious mutations in the germline and are more fertile Price 1995, 1999;Beck and Powell 2000;Beck and Promislow 2007).…”

Tapachula-7, a New Genetic Sexing Strain of the Mexican Fruit Fly (Diptera: Tephritidae): Sexual Compatibility and Competitiveness

“…For example, wild A. ludens females prefer to mate with sexually experienced older males, and in the Caribbean fruit fly, Anastrepha suspensa (Loew), males with sexual experience increase their pheromone production, mate faster, and have higher juvenile hormone levels in their hemolymph compared with virgin males (Teal et al 2000;Pérez-Staples et al 2010). In the bisexual strain of A. ludens, sexually experienced males transfer more sperm compared with virgin males, and this may also be the case for Tap-7 males (Abraham et al 2016).…”