Mating Is a Give-and-Take of Influence and Communication Between the Sexes

Rodrı́guez, Rafael L.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-17894-3_18

Cited by 18 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…Moreover, female mating resistance might not always be an attempt to physically remove the male to end the copulation. It could also serve females to assess the males [4] or even communicate with them [39,40]. Walking as the main form of female resistance during copulations lasted on average less than 1 min (see electronic supplementary material, table S1) and in one case, the female's walking and jumping terminated the copulation for good.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Female perception of copulatory courtship by male titillators in a bushcricket

2018

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Males of the bushcricket bear paired titillators that are spiny genital structures supposedly functioning as copulatory courtship devices. During copulation, the male inserts its titillators into the female's genital chamber, where they rhythmically tap on the sensilla-covered dorsal surface of the genital fold. Here, we investigated the stimulatory function of male titillators during mating in Tracer backfills of presumptive mechanosensory sensilla at the female genital fold revealed a thick bundle of sensory axons entering the last unfused abdominal ganglion (AG-7). Electrophysiological recordings of abdominal nerves demonstrated that females sense mechanical stimulation at their genital fold. The mechanosensory responses, however, were largely reduced by the insecticide pymetrozine that selectively blocks scolopidia of internal chordotonal organs but not campaniform and hair sensilla on the outer cuticle surface. In mating experiments, the females showed resistance behaviours towards males with asymmetrically shortened titillators, but the resistance was largely reduced when mechanoreceptors at the female's genital fold were either pharmacologically silenced by pymetrozine or mechanically blocked by capping with UV-hardened glue. Our findings support the hypothesis that the male titillators in these bushcrickets may serve as copulatory courtship devices to mechanically stimulate the female genitalia to reduce resistance behaviour.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Female perception of copulatory courtship by male titillators in a bushcricket

2018

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“…The consequences of these feedback loops for sexual selection will depend on a number of factors, including on the nature of male adjustments according to the competitors in social environments, on how females adjust their mate preferences in such contexts, on the cues available for males about those adjustments, and on whether males attend to them (Rodríguez, ). This is because the composition of available males in the social environment influences the shape of female mate preferences, and those preferences are a cause of sexual selection on males (Jennions & Petrie, ; Brooks & Endler, ; Chaine & Lyon, ; Verzijden et al ., ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In other words, by eavesdropping on the signals of competitors, a male may garner information about both sides of the mate choice equation – who he is up against, and what females do in the presence of such competitors. Further, female behaviour often offers direct indications of their likely decisions, ranging from subtle cues present in their posture to overt signals used to interact with males along the reproductive process, and males may adjust their behaviour on the basis of such cues and signals (Rodríguez & Barbosa, ; Rodríguez, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Males adjust their signalling behaviour according to experience of male signals and male–female signal duets

Rebar

Rodrı́guez

2016

J of Evolutionary Biology

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Sexual signals are conspicuous sources of information about neighbouring competitors, and species in which males and females signal during pair formation provide various sources of public information to which individuals can adjust their behaviour. We performed two experiments with a duetting vibrational insect, Enchenopa binotata treehoppers (Hemiptera: Membracidae), to ask whether males adjust their signalling behaviour according to (1a) their own experience of competitors' signals, (1b) how females adjust their mate preferences on the basis of their experience of male signals (described in prior work), and/or (2) their own experience of female response signals to competitors' signals. We presented males with synthetic male signals of different frequencies and combinations thereof for 2 weeks. We recorded males a day after their last signal exposure, finding that (1a) male signal rate increased in response to experience of attractive competitors, but that (1b) male signal frequency did not shift in a manner consistent with how females adjust their mate preferences in those experience treatments. Second, we presented males with different male-female duets for 2 weeks, finding that (2) male signal length increased from experience of female duets with attractive competitors. Males thus make two types of adjustment according to two sources of public information: one provided by experience of male signals and another by experience of female responses to male signals. Signalling plasticity can generate feedback loops between the adjustments that males and females make, and we discuss the potential consequences of such feedback loops for the evolution of communication systems.

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“…the adoption of a solicitation posture; Patricelli et al ., , ). Such interactions may offer useful assays for studies of mate preferences, and are drastically understudied (Rodríguez, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Describing mate preference functions and other function‐valued traits

Kilmer

Fowler‐Finn

Gray

et al. 2017

J of Evolutionary Biology

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Mate preferences are important causes of sexual selection. They shape the evolution of sexual ornaments and displays, sometimes maintaining genetic diversity and sometimes promoting speciation. Mate preferences can be challenging to study because they are expressed in animal brains and because they are a function of the features of potential mates that are encountered. Describing them requires taking this into account. We present a method for describing and analysing mate preference functions, and introduce a freely available computer program that implements the method. We give an overview of how the program works, and we discuss how it can be used to visualize and quantitatively analyse preference functions. In addition, we provide an informal review of different methods of testing mate preferences, with recommendations for how best to set up experiments on mate preferences. Although the program was written with mate preferences in mind, it can be used to study any function-valued trait, and we hope researchers will take advantage of it across a broad range of traits.

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Mating Is a Give-and-Take of Influence and Communication Between the Sexes

Cited by 18 publications

References 73 publications

Female perception of copulatory courtship by male titillators in a bushcricket

Female perception of copulatory courtship by male titillators in a bushcricket

Males adjust their signalling behaviour according to experience of male signals and male–female signal duets

Describing mate preference functions and other function‐valued traits

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