Do males choose their mates in the lekking moth Achroia grisella? Influence of female body mass and male reproductive status on male mate choice

Abstract

Lekking males aggregate to attract females and contribute solely to egg fertilization, without any further parental care. Evolutionary theory therefore predicts them to be nonchoosy toward their mates, because any lost mating opportunities would outweigh the benefits associated with such preferences. Nevertheless, due to time costs, the production of energetically costly sexual displays, and potential sperm limitation, the mating effort of lekking males is often considerable. These factors, combined with the fact that many females of varying quality are likely to visit leks, could favor the evolution of male mate preferences. Here, we show that males of the lekking lesser wax moth, Achroia grisella, were indeed more likely to mate with heavier females in choice experiments, even at their virgin mating (i.e., when their reproductive resources have not yet been depleted by previous matings). This differential female mating success could not be attributed to female behavior as heavy and light females showed similar motivation to mate (i.e., latency to approach the males) and time to copulate. Males seem to benefit from mating with heavier females, as fecundity positively correlated with female mass. This new empirical evidence shows that male mate choice may have been underestimated in lekking species.

Mating behaviour, mate choice and female resistance in the bean flower thrips (Megalurothrips sjostedti)

“…Mate choice within aggregations could be by females or males or both. Mate choice is often assumed to be by females, but there is growing evidence that male mate choice has been underestimated in the past 21 , 22 , including in lekking species 23 . When female thrips arrive at a male aggregation, there is the potential for them to choose between the many males present, even if there is no evidence that it occurs.…”

Be prudent if it fits you well: male mate choice depends on male size in a golden orb-weaver spider

“…This may explain why we found male mate choice only after males approached females and had time to collect more information on their quality. Generally, animals gather information on mate quality using multisensory cues (Rowe, 1999), but several mate choice investigations allow only one sensory input information to focal individuals (e.g., insects: Goubault & Burlaud, 2017;fish: Gasparini, Serena, & Pilastro, 2013). Thus, our findings highlight the importance of using experimental designs that assess choice in more than one moment and that allow males to receive multisensory female cues in a proper time frame.…”

Male morphology, performance and female mate choice of a swarming insect

“…Male mate choice can co-occur with female mate choice (Owens & Thompson, 1994;Lindsay et al, 2019). Bonduransky (2001) and Goubault and Burlaud (2018) note that although data for male mate choice are uncommon, they are probably strongly underestimated. Evaluating this issue with Alabagrus would require testing a male's response to a series of females, which fell beyond the scope of the present study.…”