In sex role reversal, males often
pick their mates, prizing likely fertile females
Date: June 1, 2016
Source: PLOS
In a colonial orb-weaving spider, Cyrtophora citricola, females often eat
the males after mating, but it is often the males that choose their mates,
according a study published June 1, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by
Eric Yip from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, and colleagues.
Choosing a high quality mate can
confer advantages on an animal's offspring. Due to the relatively low abundance
of eggs compared to sperm, the choice is often made by females, while males
attempt to increase their number of offspring by mating promiscuously. However,
this may be different in species that exhibit sexual cannibalism, like the
group-living C. citricola spider,
where males are often eaten after mating and so may be "choosier" due
to a single mate choice. The authors of the present study investigated how
sexual cannibalism may promote male choosiness by pairing captured virgin male
and female orb-weaving spiders randomly in the laboratory and observing which
sex was more selective and which mates were selected.
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