The shield effect: nuptial gifts protect males against pre-copulatory sexual cannibalism

Toft, Sune; Albo, María J.

doi:10.1098/rsbl.2015.1082

Cited by 29 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…We found that matings were initiated more frequently and more quickly when females were actively foraging (i.e., not satiated the previous day), suggesting that, in this case, males assessed the risk of cannibalism using cues associated with female foraging behaviour rather than perceived hunger levels. These results lend strong support to the idea that distraction is an important signal for mating initiation in cannibalistic taxa (Maxwell 1998; Bilde et al 2006; Uhl et al 2015; Toft and Albo 2016). However, it is likely that males pay attention to the entire predation sequence when timing their approach, with certain behavioural cues provoking greater response than others (Scardamaglia et al 2015).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Increased male mating success in the presence of prey and rivals in a sexually cannibalistic mantis

Burke

Holwell

2021

Preprint

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Pre-copulatory sexual cannibalism—or cannibalism without mating—is expected to promote the evolution of male strategies that enhance mating success and reduce the risk of cannibalism, such as preferential mating with feeding females. However, sexual selection on male competitiveness may alter male courtship decisions in the face of cannibalism risk. We investigated the effect of prey availability and rival presence on male mating decisions in the highly cannibalistic Springbok mantis, Miomantis caffra. We found that males approached females more rapidly and mated more often in the presence of prey, suggesting that females distracted with foraging may be less of a threat. The presence of a rival also hastened the onset of copulation and led to higher mating success, with very large effects occurring in the presence of both prey and rivals, indicating that intrasexual competition may intensify attraction to foraging females. Taken together, our results suggest that pre-copulatory cannibalism has selected for male preference for foraging females, and that males adjust their mating strategy to both the risk of competition and the threat of cannibalism.LAY SUMMARYDeciding when to approach a mate is critical for male mantises at risk of being cannibalised. A male might do well to pounce when a female is distracted with prey, but what if a nearby male has the same intention? In the Springbok mantis, we show that males mate faster and with greater success when both prey and a rival are present, suggesting that mating decisions depend on the dual threats of cannibalism and competition.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Increased male mating success in the presence of prey and rivals in a sexually cannibalistic mantis

Burke

Holwell

2021

Preprint

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“…In addition to food resources, we proposed that sexual selection plays an important role for which tactic a male employs (Ghislandi et al, 2014). We assume that post-copulatory sexual selection intensifies as the mating season progresses, because mated females become more resistant to additional matings (Halliday, 1983;Gabor & Halliday, 1997;Bateman et al, 2001;Tuni & Bilde, 2010), and this resistance may be overcome by males offering nuptial gifts (Albo et al, 2011b;Hendrickx et al, 2015;Toft & Albo, 2016). Indeed, males were increasingly more likely to carry a nuptial gift as the season progressed.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resource availability, mating opportunity and sexual selection intensity influence the expression of male alternative reproductive tactics

Ghislandi

Pekár

Matzke

et al. 2018

J of Evolutionary Biology

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The expression of alternative reproductive tactics can be plastic and occur simultaneously depending on cues that vary spatially or temporally. For example, variation in resources and sexual selection intensity is expected to influence the pay-off of each tactic and shape the decision of which tactic to employ. Males of the nuptial gift-giving spider Pisaura mirabilis can adopt three tactics: offering a genuine prey gift, a 'worthless' non-nutritious gift or no gift. We hypothesized that resources and/or male body condition, and mating opportunity and sexual selection intensity, vary over the course of the mating season to shape the co-existence of alternative traits. We measured these variables in the field over two seasons, to investigate the predictions that as the mating season progresses, (i) males become more likely to employ a gift-giving tactic, and (ii) the likelihood of switching from worthless to genuine gifts increases. Prey availability increased over the season and co-varied with the propensity of males to employ the gift-giving tactic, but we found no support for condition-dependent gift giving. Males responded to an increase in female availability by increasing their mating effort (gift production). Furthermore, the frequency of genuine gift use increased with sexual selection intensity, consistent with the assumption that sperm competition intensity increases with time. Our results suggest that the frequency of alternative tactics is shaped by seasonal changes in ecological factors and sexual selection. This leads to relaxed selection for the gift-giving tactic early in the season when females are less choosy and resources more scarce, and increased selection for genuine gifts later in the season driven by mating opportunity and risk of sperm competition.

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“…Males always benefit from avoiding cannibalism prior to mating and will usually benefit from avoiding cannibalism following mating, particularly when it allows them to acquire additional mates [8]. Indeed, males appear to have evolved a variety of counter-adaptations to sexual cannibalism, such as feigning death [9], sedating females [10], tying up females in silk [11], and providing nuptial gifts [12]. Surprisingly, males of some species, instead of resisting sexual cannibalism, actually appear to facilitate their own cannibalism by females [13,14], resulting in a monogynous mating system (a mating system in which males mate with only one female but in which females may mate with more than one male).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Males Can Benefit from Sexual Cannibalism Facilitated by Self-Sacrifice

2016

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In a number of species, males are cannibalized by females after mating (reviewed in [1, 2]), and some males actually appear to facilitate their own cannibalism (reviewed in [3]). Such self-sacrifice can evolve if being eaten sufficiently enhances either fertilization success (mating effort) or offspring number or fitness (paternal effort). While there is some support for the mating-effort hypothesis, few studies have found support for paternal effort. We used two experiments to test the paternal-effort hypothesis in the dark fishing spider, Dolomedes tenebrosus. Males of this species provide themselves as a material contribution: they spontaneously die during copulation and are subsequently eaten by females. In support of the paternal-effort predictions, when females were allowed to consume their mating partner, we found large and significant increases in (1) the number, (2) the size, and (3) the survivorship of the offspring. Similar benefits were not seen when females were allowed to consume a cricket in lieu of a male, suggesting that it is the consumption of the male's body per se that is responsible for these fitness benefits. Together, our results suggest that D. tenebrosus males can benefit from self-sacrifice behavior through paternal effort. Such behavior may be particularly likely to evolve when high rates of postcopulatory cannibalism trap males into investing in their first mate instead of investing in acquiring additional matings and/or if strong first-male sperm precedence reduces the benefits of both investing in additional matings and paternity protection.

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The shield effect: nuptial gifts protect males against pre-copulatory sexual cannibalism

Cited by 29 publications

References 31 publications

Increased male mating success in the presence of prey and rivals in a sexually cannibalistic mantis

Increased male mating success in the presence of prey and rivals in a sexually cannibalistic mantis

Resource availability, mating opportunity and sexual selection intensity influence the expression of male alternative reproductive tactics

Males Can Benefit from Sexual Cannibalism Facilitated by Self-Sacrifice

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