Male contest investment changes with male body size but not female quality in the spider Nephila clavipes

Constant, Nerine; Valbuena, Diego; Rittschof, Clare C.

doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2011.04.003

Cited by 25 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Christenson & Goist, 1979;Elgar et al, 2003;Miyashita, 1993;Rittschof, 2010;Schneider, Herberstein, De Crespigny, Ramamurthy, & Elgar, 2000). Accordingly, large males physically dominate their smaller competitors and win most agonistic encounters (Constant, Valbuena, & Rittschof, 2011;Elgar et al, 2003; this study), but previous studies have rarely related these behavioural observations to ultimate measures of fitness (but see Elgar & Jones, 2008;Rittschof, 2010). Distributions of male size in natural populations, as well as phylogenetic patterns (Higgins et al, 2011), clearly contradict strong directional selection on large male size.…”

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confidence: 81%

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Differential investment and size-related mating strategies facilitate extreme size variation in contesting male spiders

Neumann

Schneider

2015

Animal Behaviour

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confidence: 81%

“…Agonistic behaviour between males has been assessed in several Nephila species (e.g. Constant et al, 2011;Elgar et al, 2003; but corresponding data are lacking for N. senegalensis. We classified agonistic interactions as maleemale chases and contact fights (i.e.…”

Section: Initial Observation Periodmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differential investment and size-related mating strategies facilitate extreme size variation in contesting male spiders

Neumann

Schneider

2015

Animal Behaviour

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“…Combined, they must push male size down, hence the detected genetic decoupling of male and female size evolution in nephilid spiders. If the sizes were genetically linked in both sexes, as is the default in animals (spiders not being an exception, see Uhl et al, 2004), the slopes Meraz et al, 2012) Larger males were at the hub and mated more frequently, p < 0.01 (Christenson and Goist, 1979) Christenson and Goist, 1979;Vollrath, 1980;Higgins, 1992Higgins, , 2000Rittschof, 2010;Constant et al, 2011;Ceballos Meraz et al, 2012 N. edulis …”

Section: Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution and maintenance of sexual size dimorphism: aligning phylogenetic and experimental evidence

Kuntner

Elgar

2014

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Integrating the insights derived from both phylogenetic and experimental approaches offers a more complete understanding of evolutionary patterns and processes, yet it is rarely a feature of investigations of the evolutionary significance of trait variation. We combine these approaches to reinterpret the patterns and processes in the evolution of female biased sexual size dimorphism in Nephilidae, a spider lineage characterized by the most extreme sexual size dimorphism among terrestrial animals. We use a molecular phylogeny to reconstruct the size evolution for each sex and reveal a case of "sexually dimorphic gigantism": both sexes steadily outgrow their ancestral sizes, but the female and male slopes differ, and hence sexual size dimorphism steadily increases. A review of the experimental evidence reveals a predominant net selection for large size in both sexes, consistent with the phylogenetic pattern for females but not for males. Thus, while sexual size dimorphism in spiders most likely originates and is maintained by fecundity selection on females, it is unclear what selection pressures prevent males from becoming as large as females. This integrated approach highlights the dangers of inferring evolutionary significance from experimental studies that isolate the effects of single selection pressures.

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“…Females commonly co-habit with multiple males, which compete for mating opportunities. In direct male – male competition larger males usually outcompete smaller rivals17181920. On average among the species studied here, N. komaci males are the smallest and are thus expected to be outcompeted, in heterospecific interactions, by larger N. inaurata or N. senegalensis .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…Several risks exist for males. First, strong male-male competition in Nephila usually results in larger males outcompeting smaller ones17181920, and thus the syntopic species with smaller males is likely at a disadvantage. For example, N. komaci males are on average smaller than the other two co-occurring species, which implies that interspecies male competition could lower their reproductive success simply due to an increased number of competing, larger males.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential costs of heterospecific sexual interactions in golden orbweb spiders (Nephila spp.)

Quiñones-Lebrón

Kralj‐Fišer

Gregorič

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

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Though not uncommon in other animals, heterospecific mating is rarely reported in arachnids. We investigated sexual interactions among four closely related and syntopical African golden orbweb spiders, Nephila inaurata, N. fenestrata, N. komaci, and N. senegalensis. In two South African localities, female webs were often inhabited by heterospecific males that sometimes outnumbered conspecifics. Species association of males with females was random in nature. In subsequent laboratory choice experiments, N. inaurata males chose heterospecific females in 30% of trials. We also observed natural mating interactions between N. inaurata males and N. komaci females, and between N. komaci males and N. inaurata females in laboratory experiments. While heterospecific mating in the laboratory never produced offspring, conspecific mating did. We discuss potential ecological and evolutionary consequences of heterospecific mating interactions in Nephila that may be particularly costly to the rarer species.

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Male contest investment changes with male body size but not female quality in the spider Nephila clavipes

Cited by 25 publications

References 57 publications

Differential investment and size-related mating strategies facilitate extreme size variation in contesting male spiders

Differential investment and size-related mating strategies facilitate extreme size variation in contesting male spiders

Evolution and maintenance of sexual size dimorphism: aligning phylogenetic and experimental evidence

Potential costs of heterospecific sexual interactions in golden orbweb spiders (Nephila spp.)

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