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African Queens find mates when males are rare

In butterflies and moths, male‐killing endosymbionts are transmitted from infected females via their eggs, and the male progeny then perish. This means that successful transmission of the parasite relies on the successful mating of the host. Paradoxically, at the population level, parasite transmiss...

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Autores principales: Rutagarama, Vincent P., Ireri, Piera M., Sibomana, Constantin, Omufwoko, Kennedy S., Martin, Simon H., ffrench‐Constant, Richard H., Eckardt, Winnie, Kaplin, Beth K., Smith, David A. S., Gordon, Ian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10067808/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37021082
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.9956
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author Rutagarama, Vincent P.
Ireri, Piera M.
Sibomana, Constantin
Omufwoko, Kennedy S.
Martin, Simon H.
ffrench‐Constant, Richard H.
Eckardt, Winnie
Kaplin, Beth K.
Smith, David A. S.
Gordon, Ian
author_facet Rutagarama, Vincent P.
Ireri, Piera M.
Sibomana, Constantin
Omufwoko, Kennedy S.
Martin, Simon H.
ffrench‐Constant, Richard H.
Eckardt, Winnie
Kaplin, Beth K.
Smith, David A. S.
Gordon, Ian
author_sort Rutagarama, Vincent P.
collection PubMed
description In butterflies and moths, male‐killing endosymbionts are transmitted from infected females via their eggs, and the male progeny then perish. This means that successful transmission of the parasite relies on the successful mating of the host. Paradoxically, at the population level, parasite transmission also reduces the number of adult males present in the final population for infected females to mate with. Here we investigate if successful female mating when males are rare is indeed a likely rate‐limiting step in the transmission of male‐killing Spiroplasma in the African Monarch, Danaus chrysippus. In Lepidoptera, successful pairings are hallmarked by the transfer of a sperm‐containing spermatophore from the male to the female during copulation. Conveniently, this spermatophore remains detectable within the female upon dissection, and thus, spermatophore counts can be used to assess the frequency of successful mating in the field. We used such spermatophore counts to examine if altered sex ratios in the D. chrysippus do indeed affect female mating success. We examined two different field sites in East Africa where males were often rare. Surprisingly, mated females carried an average of 1.5 spermatophores each, regardless of male frequency, and importantly, only 10–20% remained unmated. This suggests that infected females will still be able to mate in the face of either Spiroplasma‐mediated male killing and/or fluctuations in adult sex ratio over the wet–dry season cycle. These observations may begin to explain how the male‐killing mollicute can still be successfully transmitted in a population where males are rare.
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spelling pubmed-100678082023-04-04 African Queens find mates when males are rare Rutagarama, Vincent P. Ireri, Piera M. Sibomana, Constantin Omufwoko, Kennedy S. Martin, Simon H. ffrench‐Constant, Richard H. Eckardt, Winnie Kaplin, Beth K. Smith, David A. S. Gordon, Ian Ecol Evol Nature Notes In butterflies and moths, male‐killing endosymbionts are transmitted from infected females via their eggs, and the male progeny then perish. This means that successful transmission of the parasite relies on the successful mating of the host. Paradoxically, at the population level, parasite transmission also reduces the number of adult males present in the final population for infected females to mate with. Here we investigate if successful female mating when males are rare is indeed a likely rate‐limiting step in the transmission of male‐killing Spiroplasma in the African Monarch, Danaus chrysippus. In Lepidoptera, successful pairings are hallmarked by the transfer of a sperm‐containing spermatophore from the male to the female during copulation. Conveniently, this spermatophore remains detectable within the female upon dissection, and thus, spermatophore counts can be used to assess the frequency of successful mating in the field. We used such spermatophore counts to examine if altered sex ratios in the D. chrysippus do indeed affect female mating success. We examined two different field sites in East Africa where males were often rare. Surprisingly, mated females carried an average of 1.5 spermatophores each, regardless of male frequency, and importantly, only 10–20% remained unmated. This suggests that infected females will still be able to mate in the face of either Spiroplasma‐mediated male killing and/or fluctuations in adult sex ratio over the wet–dry season cycle. These observations may begin to explain how the male‐killing mollicute can still be successfully transmitted in a population where males are rare. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2023-04-02 /pmc/articles/PMC10067808/ /pubmed/37021082 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.9956 Text en © 2023 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Nature Notes
Rutagarama, Vincent P.
Ireri, Piera M.
Sibomana, Constantin
Omufwoko, Kennedy S.
Martin, Simon H.
ffrench‐Constant, Richard H.
Eckardt, Winnie
Kaplin, Beth K.
Smith, David A. S.
Gordon, Ian
African Queens find mates when males are rare
title African Queens find mates when males are rare
title_full African Queens find mates when males are rare
title_fullStr African Queens find mates when males are rare
title_full_unstemmed African Queens find mates when males are rare
title_short African Queens find mates when males are rare
title_sort african queens find mates when males are rare
topic Nature Notes
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10067808/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37021082
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.9956
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