Multimodal courtship efficacy of Schizocosa retrorsa wolf spiders: implications of an additional signal modality

Enigmatic ornamentation eases male reliance on courtship performance for mating success

“…In addition, above the threshold, as courtship rate increased, a male's likelihood of copulating increased. Female preferences for male courtship rate have been documented for a wide range of animals including, but not limited to, orthopterans, homopterans and anurans (reviewed in Gerhardt & Huber 2002), fiddler crabs (Backwell et al, 1999;Murai and Backwell, 2006), birds and mammals (reviewed in Byers et al 2010), and wolf spiders (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, 2010). Thus, our findings that female choice depends upon courtship rate and that higher courtship rates result in faster copulations in S. stridulans were not unexpected.…”

“…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.…”

Female mate choice for multimodal courtship and the importance of the signaling background for selection on male ornamentation

“…Given that courtship rate is a variable known to be important in the mating success of other Schizocosa species (Delaney et al, 2007;Gibson and Uetz, 2008;Shamble et al, 2009;Hebets et al, 2011;Rundus et al, 2010Rundus et al, , 2011, we used a non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test to determine whether males courted at different rates across the four signaling environments. We conducted the same test on female age since this is another variable known to be important in mate choice in other Schizocosa species (Norton and Uetz, 2005).…”

“…Seismic courtship is the proposed ancestral modality for Schizocosa wolf spiders (Stratton, 2005) and of the species studied to date the majority requires the successful propagation of seismic signals for female acceptance of males (Hebets, 2005;Hebets, 2008;Rundus et al, 2010;Rundus et al, 2011;Hebets et al, in revision). In this study of S. crassipes, although successful seismic signal transmission is not necessary for female mate choice, it is sufficient to initiate mating.…”

“…McClintock and Uetz, 1996;Hebets and Uetz, 2000;Uetz and Roberts, 2002;Hebets, 2005;Hebets, 2008), cue isolation (e.g. Scheffer et al, 1996;Hebets and Uetz, 1999;Uetz et al, 2009), and signal ablation (e.g., Hebets, 2005;Hebets, 2008;Rundus et al, 2010;Rundus et al, 2011)] have examined female mate choice for modality-specific, as well as combined, courtship displays in the wolf spider genus Schizocosa. Upon sexual maturation, males of multiple Schizocosa species develop a conspicuous pattern of pigmentation and/or brushes on appendages associated with courtship movements (reviewed in Stratton, 2005;Framenau and Hebets, 2007).…”