Subadult experience influences adult mate choice in an arthropod: Exposed female wolf spiders prefer males of a familiar phenotype

Abstract

Current sexual selection theory proposes several potential mechanisms driving the evolution of female mating preferences, few of which involve social interactions. Although vertebrate examples of socially influenced mating preferences do exist, the invertebrate examples are virtually nonexistent. Here I demonstrate that the mating preferences of female wolf spiders can be acquired through exposure as subadults to unrelated, sexually active adult males. I first conducted exposure trials during which subadult females of the wolf spider Schizocosa uetzi were allowed to interact with mature males of an experimentally manipulated phenotype (either black or brown forelegs). After maturation, these previously exposed females were paired with a male of either a familiar or unfamiliar manipulated phenotype for mate-choice trials. Subadult females that were exposed to directed courtship by mature males of a particular morphological phenotype were subsequently more likely to mate with a male of a familiar phenotype as adults. Furthermore, females that were exposed as subadults were more likely, as adults, to cannibalize a courting male with an unfamiliar phenotype. Unexposed females did not distinguish between phenotypes in either mate choice or cannibalism frequency. These results suggest a previously uncharacterized mechanism influencing the origin of female mating preferences and ultimately the evolution of male traits: subadult experience. This study also stresses the potential importance of learning and memory on adult mate choice in an arthropod.

Early song discrimination by nestling sparrows in the wild

“…For example, relative abundance of conspecifics and heterospecifics in a population may affect the benefits of excluding heterospecifics in a territorial setting or courting heterospecific mates (Ord et al, 2011;Reeve, 1989). Similarly, prior experience with conspecific or heterospecific individuals of the opposite sex can affect mate recognition (Dukas, 2008;Hebets, 2003;Kozak and Boughman, 2009;Kozak et al, 2011;Svensson et al, 2010;Verzijden and ten Cate, 2007). Playback experiments to naïve juveniles allow us to study species recognition in a different context: recognition of conspecific tutors for learning.…”

Computational mate choice: Theory and empirical evidence

“…Whether the former can be explained as the heritable components of neuro-sensory organs and might be immune to experience, the latter explains preferences that arise by comparing prospective mates against internal standards often acquired by experience. For example, in many birds (review by Riebel, 2003Riebel, , 2009) and some spiders (Hebets, 2003), female preferences are influenced by early experience, whereas in several rodents they are affected by male familiarity: in some species familiar males are preferred over unfamiliar males (e.g. Harvest mice, Mycromys minutes, Brandt and Macdonald, 2011), in others species the opposite pattern is observed (e.g.…”

“…These results suggest that hormones affect the intercept, but probably not the slope of the UF. Plasticity in mating decisions has been found to be related not only to female reproductive stage, but also to female condition (Burley and Foster, 2006;Eraly et al, 2009;Fisher and Rosenthal, 2006;Fawcett and Johnstone, 2003a;Moskalik and Uetz, 2011;Poulin, 1994;Slagsvold et al, 1988), to age (Bateman et al, 2001;Kodric-Brown and Nicoletto, 2001;Moore and Moore, 2001), and to ecological (Booksmythe et al, 2008;Chaine and Lyon, 2008;Forsgren, 1992;Godin and Briggs, 1996;Gong and Gibson, 1996;Milner et al, 2010) and social conditions (Bailey andZuk, 2008, 2009;Collins, 1995;Hebets, 2003;Izzo and Gray, 2011;Lehmann, 2007;Rebar et al, 2011;Wagner et al, 2001). In particular, strong evidence for an effect of social experience on mating preferences has been provided by studies on the cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus.…”

Enigmatic ornamentation eases male reliance on courtship performance for mating success

“…Despite potential disadvantages of using nail polish (Rutledge et al 2010), previous studies have successfully utilized this manipulation to address questions of female mate choice in Schizocosa wolf spiders (Hebets, 2003;Rutledge et al, 2010). Manipulations consisted of painting the tibiae, patellae and the distal portion of the femora of the assigned legs.…”

“…Female Schizocosa are considered mostly monandrous (Norton & Uetz 2005), and previous work has documented strong female mate choice across species (e.g. McClintock and Uetz, 1996;Scheffer et al, 1996;Hebets and Uetz, 2000;Hebets, 2003. Additionally, extensive variation exists among species in terms of the complexity of their courtship displays and associated secondary sexual traits (reviewed in Stratton, 2005;Framenau and Hebets, 2007), making them ideal focal taxa for studies exploring female choice and its influence on male reproductive behavior and associated morphologies.…”