Spermatophore production as a function of food abundance and age in the calanoid copepods, Acartia tonsa and Acartia hudsonica

Burris, Zair P.; Dam, Hans G.

doi:10.1007/s00227-015-2628-6

Cited by 15 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…Fighters need to maintain their energetically expensive leg structures that they use in male-male competition; scramblers do not have such structures so that they could have more energy available to invest directly into reproduction. If this difference exists, it will be most evident when males are starved: for example, in Drosophila grimshawi, body condition and testes size only have a negative correlation under starved conditions (Droney 1998; also see Jia et al 2000;Burris and Dam 2015). Therefore, in our experiment, we starved half of all males from the adult stage onwards.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Male nutritional history affects female fecundity in a male-dimorphic mite: Evidence for a nuptial gift?

Beuken

Smallegange

2018

Evol Ecol

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In male-dimorphic species, males are often either armoured 'majors' that can monopolise access to females, or unarmoured and defenceless 'minors' that cannot. However, majors, unlike minors, have to spend energy to maintain their weaponry. Like-for-like, this could mean that minors have relatively more energy available to increase their reproductive output through e.g. sperm competition, or the transference of nutrients by means of a nuptial gift. Such a fitness advantage to minors could therefore contribute to explaining the coexistence of both morphs in single populations. We tested if food-deprived females of the male-dimorphic bulb mite Rhizoglyphus robini produced more eggs when mated to a minor or to a major male, and whether egg production depended on whether their mates were starved or fed prior to mating. We found no effect of male morph on female fecundity, but females did produce more eggs when mated to previously fed males. We also found that females increased in mass, but males decreased in mass over the course of the experiment. From these observations we infer that fed males are able to transfer nutrients, a nuptial gift, to their mate. This is the first observation to suggest nuptial gift transfer in mites. Though males of both morphs appeared able to produce nuptial gifts; other factors, like habitat complexity, should be considered to identify fitness benefits of minor over major males to understand why the two morphs coexist.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Male nutritional history affects female fecundity in a male-dimorphic mite: Evidence for a nuptial gift?

Beuken

Smallegange

2018

Evol Ecol

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“…The costs of reproduction are not limited to oocyte development, and recent evidence suggests that spermatophore production may require considerable resource investment in copepods (Bjaerke et al, 2015;Burris & Dam, 2015). Although the typical astaxanthin content of spermatophores is not known, our recent results suggest that it might be coupled to FA allocation (Schneider et al, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 71%

Saving for the future: Pre‐winter uptake of algal lipids supports copepod egg production in spring

et al. 2017

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The freshwater copepod Leptodiaptomus minutus in boreal lakes has its main annual reproductive period at the end of winter. This follows months of ice cover and limited food production, yet the females transfer large quantities of algal‐derived carotenoids (predominantly astaxanthin) and fatty acids (FAs) to their eggs at this time, thereby providing the offspring with antioxidant protection and energy reserves. We hypothesised that this winter transfer of carotenoid pigments and FAs is based on accumulated reserves that are reinvested into reproduction (i.e. capital breeding). This strategy would allow the animals to produce offspring in time for the nauplii to feed on the spring phytoplankton bloom, thus gaining a competitive advantage. To test this hypothesis, we evaluated the seasonal production of precursor carotenoids and essential FAs by the phytoplankton, the amounts of these compounds required for egg production and the transfer rates from phytoplankton to copepod eggs. Pelagic primary production vastly outweighed the demand for copepod eggs during summer–autumn. However, the major peak of egg production in spring could not be sustained by the low phytoplankton productivity during winter, indicating reliance on previously accumulated reserves as hypothesised. High rates of lipid reserve accumulation in L. minutus in late autumn and early winter accounted for up to 128% (astaxanthin precursors) and 70% (FAs) of the daily production by the phytoplankton, further indicating the importance of pre‐winter primary production for reserve building in this copepod. During winter, the sum of carotenoid pigments as well as the sum of essential FAs stocked in copepods exceeded the concentrations in the seston. Consequently, adult copepods act as a lipid storage pool linking the biosynthesis of carotenoids and FAs by primary producers in autumn to the production of copepod eggs at the end of winter.

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“…Thus, spermatophore production might limit mating rates in the wild (Titelman et al ). Moreover, mating reduces male longevity (Burris and Dam ), a phenomenon also known from other animals (i.e., Kotiaho and Simmons, ). This could be related to allocation of resources to spermatophore production.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…A traditional perspective on copepod reproduction is that females are limited by the energetic demand of egg production while males are limited by availability of females and behavioral efforts involved in mating. This is reflected by accumulated literature on constraints to egg production (i.e., Table 45 in Mauchline ) while the male physiological mating component—spermatophore production—has remained in the dark (but see Burris and Dam ). In spite of the common belief that sperm is cheap, there are several indications that copepod spermatophore production is costly.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The known spermatophore production rates are low, around 1 spermatophore male −1 d −1 , and decreasing with age (Sichlau and Kiørboe ; Burris and Dam ). The observed fraction of fertilized females in the field is lower than what mate encounter rates predict (Ceballos and Kiørboe ; Lasley‐Rasher et al ), as copepods have efficient ways to enhance mate encounters (e.g., Tsuda and Miller ; Bagøien and Kiørboe ).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Paternal energetic investments in copepods

et al. 2015

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Copepod mating is a complex behavioral interplay between males and females. But successful mating also requires a physiological component in terms of egg-and spermatophore production. In striking contrast to the extensive literature on copepod egg production, costs of spermatophore production has largely been ignored. This article explores the energetic demands in male copepod reproduction, testing how food and predation risk influence spermatophore production. Moreover, we analyse swimming behavior to test if predation risk and food act on reproductive investments via behavioral responses. We found that spermatophore production depends strongly on food availability. The copepods increased grazing rates with predation risk when food was limited, and video analyses revealed that males spend less time swimming in presence of a risk cue. A review of the few available spermatophore production rates suggests that food limits spermatophore production for copepods at large. Apparently, potential encounter rates with mates or predators did not influence spermatophore production. However, the reduced activity indicates a trade-off between risk avoidance and mate encounter, potentially influencing mating rates. This study shows that males invest considerable resources in each spermatophore, with implications for mating strategies and population dynamics in copepods, the most abundant metazoans on earth.

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Spermatophore production as a function of food abundance and age in the calanoid copepods, Acartia tonsa and Acartia hudsonica

Cited by 15 publications

References 71 publications

Male nutritional history affects female fecundity in a male-dimorphic mite: Evidence for a nuptial gift?

Male nutritional history affects female fecundity in a male-dimorphic mite: Evidence for a nuptial gift?

Saving for the future: Pre‐winter uptake of algal lipids supports copepod egg production in spring

Paternal energetic investments in copepods

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