Elsevier

Animal Behaviour

Volume 137, March 2018, Pages 189-196
Animal Behaviour

Male mate choice in a sexually cannibalistic widow spider

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2018.01.016Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Male brown widow spiders invest much energy in courtship, and risk cannibalism.

  • By mating with subadult females, males save energy and avoid cannibalism.

  • If mated, subadult females are fertile, but males avoided mating with subadults.

  • Instead, males chose older adult females, despite not gaining any benefit.

Males of the brown widow spider, Latrodectus geometricus (Theridiidae), invest energy in courtship displays and are often cannibalized after mating; accordingly, partial sex role reversal is expected. In this species, subadult females are able to mate and produce viable offspring. In contrast to mature females, these subadult females do not cannibalize their mates after copulation. Nevertheless, when given a choice, males preferred mature over subadult females and older over young mature females. We found no benefit for males in mating with the females of their choice. Older females were significantly less fecund than young mature females, and were not more fecund than subadult females. We tested possible advantages in mating with cannibalistic (mature) females, such as an increased probability of plugging the female's genital duct or longer copulations, or disadvantages in mating with subadult females, such as higher remating risk. None of these explanations was supported. Thus, we lack an adaptive explanation for male preference for mature older females. We suggest that older females produce more pheromone to attract males and that males are thus misled into mating with older, more aggressive and less fecund females.

Section snippets

Natural History and Mating Behaviour

Latrodectus geometricus (Theridiidae) has a worldwide distribution, found mainly in drier and warmer regions (Garb et al., 2004, Knoflach and Van Harten, 2002, Levy and Amitai, 1983), and is associated with human habitats. Like other species of the genus, it is characterized by an extreme female-biased sexual size dimorphism (Knoflach and Van Harten, 2002, Segoli et al., 2008). Mated females can produce an eggsac as early as 1 week after mating, and multiple eggsacs over their lifetime;

Male Courting Duration and Effort

Courting duration differed significantly between the three starting time categories (mean ± SE: morning: 2.91 ± 0.56 h, N = 9; afternoon: 2.76 ± 0.20 h, N = 45; evening: 1.69 ± 0.28 h, N = 24; two-way ANOVA: F2,69 = 5.31, P = 0.007; post hoc pairwise comparisons indicated a significant difference in courting duration between all starting times of courtship). More interestingly, courting duration differed significantly between the three female age groups. The mean duration of courting older adult females (3.98 ± 0.34 

Discussion

In this study we found a consistent preference of L. geometricus males to mate with mature females versus subadult females. Males particularly preferred older mature females, even though there was a higher energetic cost involved in courting these females, and males were more likely to be cannibalized.

Males can have an advantage in mating with a cannibalistic female if sexual cannibalism leads to an increase in their paternity. This may be achieved through (1) prolonging copulation duration

Acknowledgments

We thank Efrat Gavish-Regev and Amatzia Genin for their advice during the research; Hadass Steinitz, Adrea Gonzalez-Karlsson, Martin Tremmel, Adi Kliot and Ran Rosen for help with laboratory and field work; Esther Lavi and Ruti Akiva for supplying food for the spiders; and the Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for financial support. This is publication no. 713 of the Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality and no. 954 of the Mitrani

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