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Condition‐dependent ejaculate production affects male mating behavior in the common bedbug Cimex lectularius
Food availability in the environment is often low and variable, constraining organisms in their resource allocation to different life‐history traits. For example, variation in food availability is likely to induce condition‐dependent investment in reproduction. Further, diet has been shown to affect...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
John Wiley and Sons Inc.
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4797159/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27066237 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.2073 |
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author | Kaldun, Bettina Otti, Oliver |
author_facet | Kaldun, Bettina Otti, Oliver |
author_sort | Kaldun, Bettina |
collection | PubMed |
description | Food availability in the environment is often low and variable, constraining organisms in their resource allocation to different life‐history traits. For example, variation in food availability is likely to induce condition‐dependent investment in reproduction. Further, diet has been shown to affect ejaculate size, composition and quality. How these effects translate into male reproductive success or change male mating behavior is still largely unknown. Here, we concentrated on the effect of meal size on ejaculate production, male reproductive success and mating behavior in the common bedbug Cimex lectularius. We analyzed the production of sperm and seminal fluid within three different feeding regimes in six different populations. Males receiving large meals produced significantly more sperm and seminal fluid than males receiving small meals or no meals at all. While such condition‐dependent ejaculate production did not affect the number of offspring produced after a single mating, food‐restricted males could perform significantly fewer matings than fully fed males. Therefore, in a multiple mating context food‐restricted males paid a fitness cost and might have to adjust their mating strategy according to the ejaculate available to them. Our results indicate that meal size has no direct effect on ejaculate quality, but food availability forces a condition‐dependent mating rate on males. Environmental variation translating into variation in male reproductive traits reveals that natural selection can interact with sexual selection and shape reproductive traits. As males can modulate their ejaculate size depending on the mating situation, future studies are needed to elucidate whether environmental variation affecting the amount of ejaculate available might induce different mating strategies. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4797159 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-47971592016-04-08 Condition‐dependent ejaculate production affects male mating behavior in the common bedbug Cimex lectularius Kaldun, Bettina Otti, Oliver Ecol Evol Original Research Food availability in the environment is often low and variable, constraining organisms in their resource allocation to different life‐history traits. For example, variation in food availability is likely to induce condition‐dependent investment in reproduction. Further, diet has been shown to affect ejaculate size, composition and quality. How these effects translate into male reproductive success or change male mating behavior is still largely unknown. Here, we concentrated on the effect of meal size on ejaculate production, male reproductive success and mating behavior in the common bedbug Cimex lectularius. We analyzed the production of sperm and seminal fluid within three different feeding regimes in six different populations. Males receiving large meals produced significantly more sperm and seminal fluid than males receiving small meals or no meals at all. While such condition‐dependent ejaculate production did not affect the number of offspring produced after a single mating, food‐restricted males could perform significantly fewer matings than fully fed males. Therefore, in a multiple mating context food‐restricted males paid a fitness cost and might have to adjust their mating strategy according to the ejaculate available to them. Our results indicate that meal size has no direct effect on ejaculate quality, but food availability forces a condition‐dependent mating rate on males. Environmental variation translating into variation in male reproductive traits reveals that natural selection can interact with sexual selection and shape reproductive traits. As males can modulate their ejaculate size depending on the mating situation, future studies are needed to elucidate whether environmental variation affecting the amount of ejaculate available might induce different mating strategies. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2016-03-14 /pmc/articles/PMC4797159/ /pubmed/27066237 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.2073 Text en © 2016 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Original Research Kaldun, Bettina Otti, Oliver Condition‐dependent ejaculate production affects male mating behavior in the common bedbug Cimex lectularius |
title | Condition‐dependent ejaculate production affects male mating behavior in the common bedbug Cimex lectularius
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title_full | Condition‐dependent ejaculate production affects male mating behavior in the common bedbug Cimex lectularius
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title_fullStr | Condition‐dependent ejaculate production affects male mating behavior in the common bedbug Cimex lectularius
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title_full_unstemmed | Condition‐dependent ejaculate production affects male mating behavior in the common bedbug Cimex lectularius
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title_short | Condition‐dependent ejaculate production affects male mating behavior in the common bedbug Cimex lectularius
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title_sort | condition‐dependent ejaculate production affects male mating behavior in the common bedbug cimex lectularius |
topic | Original Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4797159/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27066237 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.2073 |
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