The Combined Effects of Pre- and Post-Insemination Sexual Selection on Extreme Variation in Male Body Size

Schneider, Jutta M.; Elgar, Mark A.

doi:10.1007/s10682-005-8310-6

Cited by 60 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 37 publications

(57 reference statements)

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“…Further, experimental studies in which both preand post-insemination selection pressures can act together over a longer time revealed no comparative advantage for small or large males (Schneider and Elgar, 2005;Elgar and Jones, 2008). Finally, only one of two studies that investigated mate search revealed a large size advantage, and studies of two species indicated that large males were more likely to avoid sexual cannibalism.…”

Section: Experimental Evidencementioning

confidence: 95%

“…Perhaps these experimental results are evolutionarily trivial because they focus on single components of selection that have little impact on macro-evolutionary processes. Indeed, experiments that combined pre-and post-insemination selection pressures revealed no relationship between male size and paternity share (Schneider and Elgar, 2005;Elgar and Jones, 2008).…”

Section: Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In many nephilid species, male genitalia are damaged during mating, leaving the male incapable of further mating and his broken remnants acting as a total or partial mating plug (Kuntner et al, , 2012a. The exceptions may provide insights: both males and females of N. edulis mate multiply, and single interaction experimental studies reveal both large (Elgar et al, 2003b) and small (Schneider et al, 2000) male size advantages that are counter-balanced over the longer term (Schneider and Elgar, 2005;Elgar and Jones, 2008). Sexual dimorphism is extremely variable in this species, with some males roughly an order of magnitude larger than other males (Elgar et al, 2003b).…”

Section: Equivocalmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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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Section: Experimental Evidencementioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Equivocalmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Kuntner

Elgar

2014

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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“…Clearly, males of N. plumipes cannot improve their paternity success by repeatedly mating with the same female, unlike males of the congenor N. edulis (Schneider et al 2000;Schneider and Elgar 2005;Elgar and Jones 2008;Jones and Elgar 2008), despite the possible increase in paternity share (see Elgar et al 2003b). Sexual cannibalism per se does not provide a greater paternity share or strongly reduce female receptivity (Elgar et al 2003b).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

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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“…Non-adaptive developmental responses to dietary stress have been demonstrated experimentally in N. clavipes juveniles, which both over-eat (Higgins and Rankin 2001) and fail to reach maturity on low diets (Higgins and Goodnight 2010). There is also strong evidence of size-linked reproductive strategies (Christenson et al 1985) that, in male N. edulis, produce equivalent reproductive success (Schneider and Elgar 2005). The behavioral ''compensation'' for maturation at different sizes may contribute to the extreme degree of variation in size in males of this species (Schneider and Elgar 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing ecological and developmental hypotheses of mean and variation in adult size in nephilid orb-weaving spiders

et al. 2011

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Fecundity selection has been hypothesized to drive the evolution of female gigantism in the orb-weaving family Nephilidae. Several species of these spiders also exhibit large amounts of variation in size at maturity in one or both sexes. In this article, we attempt to detect correlations of mean and variation in adult size at a phylogenetic scale between the sexes and with latitude. We tested six predictions derived from three broad developmental, ecological, and age structure hypotheses, using independent contrasts and a recent species-level nephilid phylogeny as well as least squares and other conventional statistics: 1. In both sexes, species with larger mean size will have greater variation in size; 2. Males and females will show correlated changes in mean size and of variation in size; 3. In both sexes, mean size will be negatively correlated with the midpoint of the latitudinal range; 4. In both sexes, tropical species will be more variable; 5. In both sexes, more widespread species will be more variable; 6. Variation in male size will be positively correlated with mean female size. In no cases were male and female development correlated, suggesting that in this lineage male and female body size evolve independently. The only significant trend detected was a positive phylogenetic correlation between variation in female size and latitude, the opposite of prediction 4. Power tests showed that in all tests of the ecological hypothesis, sample sizes were more than adequate to detect significant trends, if present. Our results suggest that evolutionary trends in juvenile development among species are too weak to be detectable in such data sets.

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The Combined Effects of Pre- and Post-Insemination Sexual Selection on Extreme Variation in Male Body Size

Cited by 60 publications

References 37 publications

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

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

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

Testing ecological and developmental hypotheses of mean and variation in adult size in nephilid orb-weaving spiders

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