Sex, shells, and weaponry: coercive reproductive tactics in the painted turtle, Chrysemys picta

Moldowan, Patrick D.; Brooks, Ronald J.; Litzgus, Jacqueline D.

doi:10.1007/s00265-020-02926-w

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Behaviors arising from sexual conflict are widespread in animals ( Arnqvist and Rowe 2005 ), including sexual coercion by males, who physically force females into unwanted copulation in insects, isopods, fish, reptiles, and mammals ( Sparkes et al 1996 ; Watson-Capps 2009 ; Rossi et al 2010 ; Takahashi and Watanabe 2010 ; Tsurui-Sato et al 2019 ; Iglesias-Carrasco et al 2020 ; Moldowan et al 2020 ; Smit et al 2022 ), and sexual cannibalism by females, who attack and consume males at some stage during courtship or mating and documented in many arthropods including mantises, spiders, crickets, amphipods, copepods, and some gastropods ( Elgar 2004 ; Burke and Holwell 2021 ). Although female sexual catalepsy might initially seem to reflect a case of male-controlled sexual conflict, our experiments suggest that it is under female control and benefits both females and males.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Females adopt sexual catalepsy to facilitate mating

Liu

Tang

et al. 2023

Current Zoology

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Theory predicts that males and females of dioecious species typically engage in an evolutionary sexual conflict over the frequency and choice of mating partner. Female sexual cannibalism, a particularly dramatic illustration of this conflict, is widespread in certain animal taxa including spiders. Nevertheless, females of some funnel weaving spiders that are generally aggressive to conspecifics enter a cataleptic state after male courtship, ensuring the males can mate without risk of attack. In this study, we demonstrated that the physical posture and duration, metabolites and central neurotransmitters of females of Aterigena aculeata in sexual catalepsy closely resemble females in thanatosis but are distinct from those in anaesthesia, indicating that the courted females feign death to eliminate the risk of potentially aggressive responses and thereby allow preferred males to mate. Unlike the taxonomically widespread thanatosis, which generally represents a deceptive visual signal that acts against the interest of the receivers, sexual catalepsy of females in the funnel weaving spiders may deliver a sexual-receptive signal to the courting males and thereby benefit both the signal senders and receivers. Therefore, sexual catalepsy in A. aculeata may not reflect a conflict but rather a confluence of interest between the sexes.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Females adopt sexual catalepsy to facilitate mating

Liu

Tang

et al. 2023

Current Zoology

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“…Male harming traits have been described across a wide range of taxa [4], from traumatic insemination of bed bugs [54], and grasping appendages of water striders [55,56], to proteins in the ejaculates of flatworms [57], and tomiodonts of painted turtles [58]. Recent theory has shown how kin selection may curb the worst excesses of such male harm [24][25][26][27]29] and has been supported empirically in a growing range of taxa, including arachnids, birds and insects [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]23,30].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex-biased demography modulates male harm across the genome

Hitchcock

Gardner

2021

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Recent years have seen an explosion of theoretical and empirical interest in the role that kin selection plays in shaping patterns of sexual conflict, with a particular focus on male harming traits. However, this work has focused solely on autosomal genes, and as such it remains unclear how demography modulates the evolution of male harm loci occurring in other portions of the genome, such as sex chromosomes and cytoplasmic elements. To investigate this, we extend existing models of sexual conflict for application to these different modes of inheritance. We first analyse the general case, revealing how sex-specific relatedness, reproductive value and the intensity of local competition combine to determine the potential for male harm. We then analyse a series of demographically explicit models, to assess how dispersal, overlapping generations, reproductive skew and the mechanism of population regulation affect sexual conflict across the genome, and drive conflict between nuclear and cytoplasmic genes. We then explore the effects of sex biases in these demographic parameters, showing how they may drive further conflicts between autosomes and sex chromosomes. Finally, we outline how different crossing schemes may be used to identify signatures of these intragenomic conflicts.

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“…The turtle project at the AWRS is, to our knowledge, the longest‐running continuous study of turtles in the world. Initial mark‐recapture studies of common snapping turtles ( Chelydra serpentina ) and eastern painted turtles ( Chrysemys picta ) on the Sasajewun Dam conducted in the 1970s (Loncke & Obbard, 1977 ) would eventually burgeon into projects in numerous disciplines, including behavior (Keevil et al., 2017 ; Moldowan et al., 2020 ; Obbard & Brooks, 1979 ), demography and life history (Galbraith et al., 1989 ; Galbraith & Brooks, 1987 ; Samson, 2003 ), developmental physiology (Massey, Congdon, et al., 2019 ; Massey, Holt, et al., 2019 ; Rollinson et al., 2018 ; Rouleau et al., 2019 ), feeding ecology (Moldowan et al., 2015 ), methods in conservation (Riley & Litzgus, 2013 ), genetics (Rouleau, 2020 ), and reproductive ecology (Obbard & Brooks, 1980 , 1987 ); by no means is this list exhaustive. Of these, one of the most incredible testaments to natural history's role in informing conservation is the story of a rare natural experiment that occurred in the late 1980s.…”

Section: Natural History and Conservation Biologymentioning

confidence: 99%

The nature of science: The fundamental role of natural history in ecology, evolution, conservation, and education

Nanglu,

de Carle,

Cullen

et al. 2023

Ecology and Evolution

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There is a contemporary trend in many major research institutions to de‐emphasize the importance of natural history education in favor of theoretical, laboratory, or simulation‐based research programs. This may take the form of removing biodiversity and field courses from the curriculum and the sometimes subtle maligning of natural history research as a “lesser” branch of science. Additional threats include massive funding cuts to natural history museums and the maintenance of their collections, the extirpation of taxonomists across disciplines, and a critical under‐appreciation of the role that natural history data (and other forms of observational data, including Indigenous knowledge) play in the scientific process. In this paper, we demonstrate that natural history knowledge is integral to any competitive science program through a comprehensive review of the ways in which they continue to shape modern theory and the public perception of science. We do so by reviewing how natural history research has guided the disciplines of ecology, evolution, and conservation and how natural history data are crucial for effective education programs and public policy. We underscore these insights with contemporary case studies, including: how understanding the dynamics of evolutionary radiation relies on natural history data; methods for extracting novel data from museum specimens; insights provided by multi‐decade natural history programs; and how natural history is the most logical venue for creating an informed and scientifically literate society. We conclude with recommendations aimed at students, university faculty, and administrators for integrating and supporting natural history in their mandates. Fundamentally, we are all interested in understanding the natural world, but we can often fall into the habit of abstracting our research away from its natural contexts and complexities. Doing so risks losing sight of entire vistas of new questions and insights in favor of an over‐emphasis on simulated or overly controlled studies.

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Sex, shells, and weaponry: coercive reproductive tactics in the painted turtle, Chrysemys picta

Cited by 8 publications

References 100 publications

Females adopt sexual catalepsy to facilitate mating

Females adopt sexual catalepsy to facilitate mating

Sex-biased demography modulates male harm across the genome

The nature of science: The fundamental role of natural history in ecology, evolution, conservation, and education

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