Age dependent mate choice influences reproductive and progeny attributes in aphidophagous ladybird beetles (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae)

Abstract

Despite the many studies on age based mate choice in insects, the question of how age influences mate choice in predaceous ladybird beetles is still unexplored. The present study evaluates age based mate choice in two sympatric aphidophagous ladybirds, Coccinella septempunctata L. and Coccinella transversalis Fab., in terms of mating behaviour (latent period, number of bouts, bout interval and duration of wriggling movements and mating), fecundity, egg viability and the development and survival of their progeny. Results revealed that middle aged (30-40 days) mates were preferred by young (10-15 days post-eclosion), middle aged (30-40 days) and old (45-55 days) individuals of both sexes. Mating behaviour and egg viability differed significantly with male age whereas fecundity, offspring development and survival differed significantly with female age. The shortest latent periods and bout intervals, highest numbers of bouts, longest durations of wriggling movements and mating, and maximum egg viability were recorded for middle aged males whereas fecundity, percentage pupation and adult emergence of offspring were highest and durations of immature development were shortest for middle aged females. Thus, the present study indicates that middle aged individuals of C. septempunctata and C. transversalis are most preferred as mates as they have the highest reproductive output and produce the fittest offspring.

The better, the choosier: A meta‐analysis on interindividual variation of male mate choice

“…On the other hand, females may avoid older males if they reduce female fitness (e.g. Bista & Omkar, 2015), given that they often produce ejaculates of lower quality (e.g. Johnson et al, 2018; Vega‐Trejo et al, 2019).…”

“…There are data points not shown with values lower or greater than the limits of the x-axis in this figure males if they reduce female fitness (e.g. Bista & Omkar, 2015), given that they often produce ejaculates of lower quality (e.g. Johnson et al, 2018;Vega-Trejo et al, 2019).…”

Operational sex ratio and paternal age sway mating and reproductive performance inMenochilus sexmaculatus(Coleoptera: Coccinellidae)

“…Among age groups, the delay in commencement of mating by old individuals may be attributed to the female assessment of male quality followed by mating avoidance with older males (Bonduriansky and Brassil 2002;Jones and Elgar 2004;Beck and Promislow 2007;Omkar et al 2010). The decreased mating performance of old males has also been reported in other Coccinellidae species (Bista and Omkar 2015). The copulation duration, as shown in Figure 1B, was higher under extreme competition, which is probably a consequence of the increased possibility of sperm competition due to the male-biased sex ratio (Siva-Jothy 1987;Siva-Jothy and Tsubaki 1989;Parker 1993;Chaudhary et al 2017).…”

Female choice of mates in the aphidophagous ladybird beetle, Hippodamia variegata (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae): the effect of male age, sexual status and familiarity

“…In ladybirds mate choice is reported to be based on morph (Osawa and Nishida 1992;Mishra and Omkar 2014), age (Bista and Omkar 2015), body size (Dubey et al 2016), mating status (Dubey et al 2018) and familiarity (Saxena et al 2018). Hippodamia variegata (Goeze) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) is an aphidophagous ladybird native to Asia and a potential biological control agent (Tan et al 2014).…”