Partial fertility and polyandry: a benefit of multiple mating hiding in plain sight?

Forbes, Scott

doi:10.1007/s00265-014-1743-6

Cited by 16 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…In short-lived insects, delayed mating reduces lifetime fecundity of females due to metabolic cost of survival during the latency period combined with reduced duration of post mating oviposition period (Mori & Evenden, 2013;Gerken & Campbell, 2018). In purely monandrous species, mated females do not seek additional copulations unless they copulated with a poor-quality male (Elzinga et al, 2011;Forbes, 2014).…”

Section: Senescence As the Ultimate Cause Of Fmfmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecology of female mating failure/lifelong virginity: a review of causal mechanisms in insects and arachnids

Rhainds

2019

Entomologia Exp Applicata

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Sexual reproduction implies binary outcomes of competitive interactions for access to male gametes: lifelong virgin females with null fitness vs. mated females with variable (generally nonzero) fitness. Female mating failure has long remained a dormant concept in sexual selection theory in part because it is acutely maladaptive (lifelong virgins that do not reproduce are strongly selected against) and also due to widespread acceptance of the Bateman–Trivers paradigm (anisogamy and correlated sex roles). Based on recent scientific output on lifelong virginity across multiple taxonomic groups in insects (Coleoptera, Diptera, Hemiptera, Lepidoptera, Odonata, Orthoptera, Strepsiptera), female mating failure has become a mainstay of sexual selection over the last decade. Lifelong virginity and senescence (death) are intertwined processes; old virgin females compensate for increased risk of lifelong virginity by becoming less choosy and increasing investment in mating‐related activities. Low rates of female lifelong virginity (<5%) in most natural populations of insects indicate that sex generally ‘works’ due to selective pressures acting on both males and females to enhance lifetime fitness. Mating failures are most common in insects with female flightlessness; these pressures may lead in evolutionary time to transitionary pathways from sexual reproduction to parthenogenesis. Female mating probability is affected by nonlinear density‐dependent processes dependent upon the scale of observation (mate‐encounter Allee effect at large spatial scales, mating interferences between females at small scales). Mate choice and sex role reversal (females being the active sexual partner) are ubiquitous in insects and arachnids with significant paternal investment, but consequences in terms of female lifelong virginity remain unknown. Logistically, conceptual development of female mating failure in insects is most limited by the lack of broadly applicable methods to assess rates of lifetime virginity among flighted females.

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Section: Senescence As the Ultimate Cause Of Fmfmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecology of female mating failure/lifelong virginity: a review of causal mechanisms in insects and arachnids

Rhainds

2019

Entomologia Exp Applicata

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“…Researchers have generated an impressive number and diversity of hypotheses to account for female extra‐pair behaviour, among them fertility insurance (Forbes, ; Griffith, ; Schmoll & Kleven, ), genetic constraint (Forstmeier, Nakagawa, Griffith, & Kempanaers, ; Hsu, Schroeder, Winney, Burke, & Nakagawa, ; Westneat & Stewart, ) and direct material gain (Townsend, Clark, & McGowan, ). But by far, the most frequently and intensively investigated hypotheses posit that by mating outside the pair bond, females are acquiring “good genes” for their offspring.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differences in perceived predation risk associated with variation in relative size of extra‐pair and within‐pair offspring

Hallinger

Vitousek

Winkler

2019

J of Evolutionary Biology

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Extra‐pair paternity (EPP) is a widespread phenomenon in birds. Researchers have long hypothesized that EPP must confer a fitness advantage to extra‐pair offspring (EPO), but empirical support for this hypothesis is definitively mixed. This could be because genetic benefits of EPP only exist in a subset of environmental contexts to which a population is exposed. From 2013 to 2015, we manipulated perceived predator density in a population of tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) breeding in New York to see whether fitness outcomes of extra‐pair and within‐pair offspring (WPO) varied with predation risk. In nests that had been exposed to predators, EPO were larger, longer‐winged and heavier than WPO. In nonpredator nests, WPO tended to be larger, longer‐winged and heavier than EPO, though the effect was nonsignificant. We found no differences in age, morphology or stress physiology between extra‐pair and within‐pair sires from the same nest, suggesting that additive genetic benefits cannot fully explain the differences in nestling size that we observed. The lack of an effect of predator exposure on survival or glucocorticoid stress physiology of EPO and WPO further suggests that observed size differences do not reflect more general variation in intrinsic genetic quality. Instead, we suggest that size differences may have arisen through differential investment into EPO and WPO by females, perhaps because EPO and WPO represent different reproductive strategies, with each type of nestling conferring a fitness advantage in specific ecological contexts.

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“…All Mandarte-hatched individuals were assigned to their true genetic parents with >99% individual-level statistical confidence, allowing reconstruction of a complete genetic pedigree (e.g., Sardell et al, 2010). This genetic pedigree was combined with parentage inferred from comprehensive observations of social pairings spanning 1975-1992 to compile a full pedigree covering 1975-2014Reid, Arcese, Keller, et al, 2014;Sardell et al, 2010). We applied standard algorithms to the full pedigree to calculate each male's coefficient of inbreeding f, which is defined as the probability that two homologous alleles will be identical by descent relative to the pedigree baseline, and therefore measures relative expected genome-wide homozygosity.…”

Section: Sperm Samplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

No evidence of inbreeding depression in sperm performance traits in wild song sparrows

Losdat

Germain

Nietlisbach

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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Inbreeding is widely hypothesized to shape mating systems and population persistence, but such effects will depend on which traits show inbreeding depression. Population and evolutionary consequences could be substantial if inbreeding decreases sperm performance and hence decreases male fertilization success and female fertility. However, the magnitude of inbreeding depression in sperm performance traits has rarely been estimated in wild populations experiencing natural variation in inbreeding. Further, the hypothesis that inbreeding could increase within‐ejaculate variation in sperm traits and thereby further affect male fertilization success has not been explicitly tested. We used a wild pedigreed song sparrow (Melospiza melodia) population, where frequent extrapair copulations likely create strong postcopulatory competition for fertilization success, to quantify effects of male coefficient of inbreeding (f) on key sperm performance traits. We found no evidence of inbreeding depression in sperm motility, longevity, or velocity, and the within‐ejaculate variance in sperm velocity did not increase with male f. Contrary to inferences from highly inbred captive and experimental populations, our results imply that moderate inbreeding will not necessarily constrain sperm performance in wild populations. Consequently, the widely observed individual‐level and population‐level inbreeding depression in male and female fitness may not stem from reduced sperm performance in inbred males.

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Partial fertility and polyandry: a benefit of multiple mating hiding in plain sight?

Cited by 16 publications

References 35 publications

Ecology of female mating failure/lifelong virginity: a review of causal mechanisms in insects and arachnids

Ecology of female mating failure/lifelong virginity: a review of causal mechanisms in insects and arachnids

Differences in perceived predation risk associated with variation in relative size of extra‐pair and within‐pair offspring

No evidence of inbreeding depression in sperm performance traits in wild song sparrows

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