Females Are Choosier in the Dark: Environment-Dependent Reliance on Courtship Components and Its Impact on Fitness

Dangerous mating systems: Signal complexity, signal content and neural capacity in spiders

“…Curiously, however, in S. floridana, female mate choice was only dependent upon these condition-dependent signals under certain environmental conditions. Specifically, high diet males only received higher mating success in environments where visual signals could not be perceived, yet all males mated more frequently and more quickly in the presence of visual signaling (Rundus et al, 2011). These last results highlight a potential trade-off between speed and accuracy in female mate choice and such a trade-off may be exacerbated in dangerous mating systems such as cannibalistic spiders.…”

“…In S. ocreata, both frequency and temporal components were good predictors of female receptivity displays Uetz, 2008, 2012), while female H. rubrofasiata preferred male drums of longer duration, with no influence of pulse rate on female choice (Parri et al, 2002). In other wolf spiders (Schizocosa floridana and R. rabida), components of both visual and vibratory signals were also condition-dependent (Rundus et al, 2011;Wilgers and Hebets, 2011). Curiously, however, in S. floridana, female mate choice was only dependent upon these condition-dependent signals under certain environmental conditions.…”

“…Artificial manipulations of display components, the use of video playbacks, and/or signal ablation techniques have verified the presence of selection for male courtship components and have highlighted the importance of interactions between signaling modalities and the complexities of mating decisions (reviewed in Hebets et al, 2013 &Roberts, 2002). For example, a female's attention to visual signal components is modified by the presence/absence of vibratory signaling (Hebets, 2005;Stafstrom and Hebets, 2013) and her choice of mates can be dependent upon an interaction between the signaling environment and a male's foraging history (Rundus et al, 2011). Additionally, males of some wolf spider species (Rabidosa rabida and Schizocosa ocreata) are known to be flexible in the composition of their courtship displays, adjusting the make-up of display components dependent upon current signaling environments (Taylor et al, 2005;Wilgers and Hebets, 2011).…”

Temporal patterns of nutrition dependence in secondary sexual traits and their varying impacts on male mating success

“…First, previous studies in related species of wolf spider have shown that subadult males placed on different diets show different phenotype expression as adults (Rosenthal & Hebets, 2012;Rundus, Sullivan-Beckers, Wilgers, & Hebets, 2011). Additionally, since juvenile diet affects maturation time (Rosenthal & Hebets, 2012;Rundus et al, 2011), restricting the juvenile diet duration enabled us to run all trials within a reasonable time frame. Individuals were placed into diet treatments 23 ± 4 days prior to maturation.…”

Enigmatic ornamentation eases male reliance on courtship performance for mating success

“…While early Schizocosa studies focused on the relationship between ornamentation and female choice (McClintock and Uetz, 1996;Scheffer et al, 1996;Hebets and Uetz, 2000;Uetz and Roberts, 2002;Hebets et al, 2006;Uetz and Norton, 2007), more recent studies have highlighted the importance of these active displays, as courtship rate has been shown to influence male mating success across multiple species of wolf spider (Kotiaho et al, 1998a;Parri et al, 2002;Rypstra et al, 2003;Delaney et al, 2007;Gibson and Uetz, 2008;Lomborg and Toft, 2009;Shamble et al, 2009;Rundus et al, 2010Rundus et al, , 2011. Female Schizocosa are considered mostly monandrous (Norton & Uetz 2005), and previous work has documented strong female mate choice across species (e.g.…”