Risky mate search and mate preference in the golden orb-web spider (Nephila plumipes)

Kasumovic, Michael M.; Bruce, Matthew J.; Herberstein, Marie E.; Andrade, Maydianne C. B.

doi:10.1093/beheco/arl072

Cited by 118 publications

(102 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Although finding a mate is paramount for all sexually reproducing organisms, effort spent searching for a mate is often markedly different between the sexes (Barnes 1982;Kasumovic and Andrade 2004;Kasumovic et al 2007;Ambrogi et al 2008). In most taxa, males perform the majority of mate searching (Barnes 1982;Kasumovic and Andrade 2004;Kasumovic et al 2007;Ambrogi et al 2008), and females are more likely than males to encounter more mates than required for optimal fitness (Kokko and Wong 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In most taxa, males perform the majority of mate searching (Barnes 1982;Kasumovic and Andrade 2004;Kasumovic et al 2007;Ambrogi et al 2008), and females are more likely than males to encounter more mates than required for optimal fitness (Kokko and Wong 2007). Encountering too many mates can be costly rather than merely superfluous (Arnqvist and Nilsson 2000;Kawagoe et al 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Mothematics of Female Pheromone Signaling: Strategies for Aging Virgins

Umbers¹,

Symonds

Kokko

2015

The American Naturalist

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Although females rarely experience strong mate limitation, delays or lifelong problems of mate acquisition are detrimental to female fitness. In systems where males search for females via pheromone plumes, it is often difficult to assess whether female signaling is costly. Direct costs include the energetics of pheromone production and attention from unwanted eavesdroppers, such as parasites, parasitoids, and predators. Suboptimal outcomes are also possible from too many or too few mating events or near-simultaneous arrival of males who make unwanted mating attempts (even if successfully thwarted). We show that, in theory, even small costs can lead to a scenario where young females signal less intensely (lower pheromone concentration and/or shorter time spent signaling) and increase signaling effort only as they age and gather evidence (while still virgin) on whether sperm limitation threatens their reproductive success. Our synthesis of the empirical data available on Lepidoptera supports this prediction for one frequently reported component of signalingtime spent calling (often reported as the time of onset of calling at night)-but not for another, pheromone titer. This difference is explicable under the plausible but currently untested assumption that signaling earlier than other females each night is a more reliable way of increasing the probability of acquiring at least one mate than producing a more concentrated pheromone plume. Submitted February 24, 2014; Accepted October 3, 2014; Electronically published February 2, 2015 Online enhancement: appendix.abstract: Although females rarely experience strong mate limitation, delays or lifelong problems of mate acquisition are detrimental to female fitness. In systems where males search for females via pheromone plumes, it is often difficult to assess whether female signaling is costly. Direct costs include the energetics of pheromone production and attention from unwanted eavesdroppers, such as parasites, parasitoids, and predators. Suboptimal outcomes are also possible from too many or too few mating events or near-simultaneous arrival of males who make unwanted mating attempts (even if successfully thwarted). We show that, in theory, even small costs can lead to a scenario where young females signal less intensely (lower pheromone concentration and/or shorter time spent signaling) and increase signaling effort only as they age and gather evidence (while still virgin) on whether sperm limitation threatens their reproductive success. Our synthesis of the empirical data available on Lepidoptera supports this prediction for one frequently reported component of signaling-time spent calling (often reported as the time of onset of calling at night)-but not for another, pheromone titer. This difference is explicable under the plausible but currently untested assumption that signaling earlier than other females each night is a more reliable way of increasing the probability of acquiring at least one mate than producing a more concentrated pheromone plume.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Mothematics of Female Pheromone Signaling: Strategies for Aging Virgins

Umbers¹,

Symonds

Kokko

2015

The American Naturalist

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“…We use the golden orb-web spider (Nephila plumipes), an excellent system in which to study the influence of social factors on male mating behavior. At maturity, males search for a female's web on which to settle and mate (Kasumovic et al 2007). Settlement decisions are therefore equivalent to mate choice in this species, making measurement of male choice straightforward and unambiguous.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reproductive Foragers: Male Spiders Choose Mates by Selecting among Competitive Environments

Jordan

Kokko

Kasumovic

2014

The American Naturalist

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Here we test the importance of contest dynamics in male choice using a framework in which females are considered analogous to foraging patches that are subject to competition. We track the mate choices and interactions of 640 spiders (Nephila plumipes) before and after manipulation of competition within enclosures, modeling the expected fitness payoffs of each male's actual choices and comparing these with all alternative choices. Many males choose new mates once social conditions change and achieve higher fitness than predicted under random movement. Males do not simply move to larger females but choose favorable competitive environments that balance competition and female fecundity, thereby increasing their fitness payoffs. Further, we show for the first time that prior-residence effects, which are known to influence male contests, also have a strong influence in male reproductive contests and can shape male mate choice. These results highlight the importance of situating male choice studies in the relevant social context, as intrasexual interactions can have profound effects on the realization and payoffs of male mate-choice strategies.

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“…Copulation is relatively brief in this species Elgar et al 2003b), so females are likely to be consuming the prey item after the first copulation has ceased, thereby providing an incentive for males to quickly initiate a second copulation. Finally, several studies of this and other species of Nephila reveal high levels of disappearance among males moving between webs (Vollrath 1980;Kasumovic et al 2007; but see Fromhage et al 2007). While interpreting these kinds of data is notoriously difficult, it is possible that matesearching males suffer higher levels of mortality.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…The mortality associated with the movement between webs has been estimated from disappearance data (see Kasumovic et al 2007), but this is likely to be trivial within aggregations that may contain more than a dozen female webs (Elgar 1989), and may not be high between adjacent aggregations. The sex ratio on individual webs can be very heavily skewed, with individual females being host to numerous males who may engage in competitive contests (Elgar and Fahey 1996).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Male copulation frequency, sperm competition and genital damage in the golden orb-web spider (Nephila plumipes)

et al. 2008

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Abstract. Copulation in many sexually cannibalistic spiders is associated with a loss of function of the male reproductive organs and, as a consequence, males that survive sexual cannibalism may nevertheless be unable to subsequently copulate successfully. Sexual cannibalism is common in the Australian golden orb-web spider (Nephila plumipes), in which the tip of the conductor typically breaks during copulation. Thus, male mating frequency may be physiologically limited to two females, irrespective of the male's ability to avoid cannibalism or the opportunity to locate and court additional, receptive females. Laboratory experiments revealed that the likelihood of the conductor breaking depends upon the copulatory history of the female insemination duct: males were more likely to break their conductor if they inseminated a 'virgin' rather than 'mated' insemination duct. However, the choice of insemination duct did not influence the duration of copulation or quantity of sperm transferred. In field populations, the proportion of males with both conductors broken increased during the course of the mating season, but while males with broken conductors did not copulate successfully with virgin females, they were nevertheless observed on the webs of immature females. We suggest that male N. plumipes with broken conductors on the webs of females are most likely mate guarding, as this appears to be the most effective mechanism of securing paternity.

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Risky mate search and mate preference in the golden orb-web spider (Nephila plumipes)

Cited by 118 publications

References 42 publications

The Mothematics of Female Pheromone Signaling: Strategies for Aging Virgins

The Mothematics of Female Pheromone Signaling: Strategies for Aging Virgins

Reproductive Foragers: Male Spiders Choose Mates by Selecting among Competitive Environments

Male copulation frequency, sperm competition and genital damage in the golden orb-web spider (Nephila plumipes)

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