Mate guarding behavior in clam shrimp: the influence of mating system on intersexual conflict |
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Authors: | Chiara Benvenuto Stephen C Weeks |
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Institution: | (1) Program in Integrated Bioscience, Department of Biology, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325, USA;(2) Department of Biological Sciences, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242, USA;(3) UCD School of Biology & Environmental Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, 4, Ireland |
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Abstract: | Mate guarding is a male strategy to gain access to receptive females but often results in antagonistic interactions between
the sexes because of different costs/benefits of guarding. In addition to social, morphological, and physiological parameters,
the type of mating system should also affect the strength of the conflict and thus the guarding duration. Specifically, when
compared to females, self-compatible hermaphrodites might have reduced benefits of outcrossing. We investigated mate guarding
in dioecious (co-presence of females and males) and androdioecious (co-presence of hermaphrodites and males) branchiopod crustaceans.
Both sexes in androdioecious systems should shift their guarding times to lower values relative to dioecious systems because
(1) androdioecious males are present in lower percentages than dioecious males and thus encounter rates with receptive mates
are relatively greater for them; and (2) hermaphrodites should have low incentive to incur high costs of mate guarding, having
the alternative of self-fertilization, and thus should be highly eager to resist. While females preferred short guarding times,
when allowed to control the guarding duration (males tethered), dioecious males did not increase their guarding duration when
females (treated with muscular relaxant) could not resist, in contrast to what has previously been found for androdioecious
males. This indicates that hermaphrodites are more willing to resist mate guarding than females. The among-species comparisons
supported our hypotheses: compromised guarding times were significantly lower in androdioecious than in dioecious species.
The introduction of a parameter (mating system) not previously investigated in mate guarding models resulted in a powerful
test of mate guarding theory, adding a valuable contribution to our understanding of intersexual conflict. |
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