Older males attract more females but get fewer matings in a wild field cricket
Older males attract more females but get fewer matings in a wild field cricket
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DOI：
10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.04.011
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发表时间：
2019-07
期刊：
影响因子：
2.5
通讯作者：
Rolando Rodríguez-Muñoz;P. Hopwood;D. Fisher;Ian M. Skicko;Rachel Tucker;Katherine Woodcock;J. Slate;C. Walling;T. Tregenza
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文献类型：
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作者：
Rolando Rodríguez-Muñoz;P. Hopwood;D. Fisher;Ian M. Skicko;Rachel Tucker;Katherine Woodcock;J. Slate;C. Walling;T. Tregenza
潜在配偶的年龄被认为是女性择偶的一个重要目标。另类假设预测任一方向的偏好。雌性可能会更喜欢年长的雄性，因为这些雄性已经证明了它们的生存能力。或者，它们可能更喜欢没有积累有害突变的年轻雄性。在实验室实验中观察到了两个方向的偏好，这表明这是一个需要在其生态背景下理解的问题。我们测量了 10 年来田间蟋蟀自然种群的个体行为和繁殖成功率。我们发现，在这种一年生昆虫中，雄性相对于同龄昆虫的年龄与其寿命的相关性很小。这表明，选择年长雄性的雌性选择的潜力有限，因为选择年长雄性的策略不会显着增加雌性与长寿雄性交配的可能性。年长的雄性在洞穴中与雌性交配时更成功，但一旦配对，它们就不太可能与雌性交配。通过对下一代成年人进行基因分型，我们证实，与雌性配对和交配的观察结果与成功的后代产生有关。然而，雄性交配的年龄与其生育的成年后代数量之间没有关系。缺乏证据表明雄性年龄对雌性的择偶选择有任何健康益处，这与雄性年龄对其与雌性交配成功与否的影响相反的观察结果是一致的。
The age of potential mates has been proposed to be an important target for mate choice by females. Alternative hypotheses predict preferences in either direction. Females might be expected to prefer older males because such males have demonstrated their capacity to survive. Alternatively, they might prefer younger males that have not accumulated deleterious mutations. Preferences in both directions have been observed in laboratory experiments, suggesting that this is an issue that needs to be understood within its ecological context. We measured individual behaviour and reproductive success in a natural population of the field cricketGryllus campestrisover 10 years. We found that in this annual insect, a male's age relative to his peers was poorly correlated with his life span. This suggests that there is limited potential for selection to favour female choice for older males because a strategy of choosing older males would not significantly increase a female's likelihood of mating with a long-lived male. Older males were more successful at pairing up with females at a burrow, but once paired they were less likely to mate with them. By genotyping the next generation of adults we confirmed that observations of both pairing up with a female and matings were associated with successful offspring production. However, there was no relationship between how old a male was at mating and how many adult offspring he had. This lack of evidence for any fitness benefits to females from mate choice in relation to male age was consistent with the observation that the age of males had opposite effects on their success in pairing up with females compared to their success in mating with them.