The evolution of female multiple mating as a life-history strategy

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Although most theories explaining the evolution of female multiple mating (polyandry) are based on sexual selection, they can be relevant to life-history strategies. In Japan, Callosobruchus chinensis has been reared in the laboratory for over 70 years as a model system. Females in this lab strain are monandrous while females from recently established strains from the wild are polyandrous. In the standard rearing regime newly emerged adults have been supplied with no food but beans as oviposition site. Under such conditions females have to lay eggs before they starve to death. Therefore, monandry may have resulted from inadvertent selection for early reproducing genotypes. To test this hypothesis I conducted artificial selection experiments based on feeding regime-age at reproduction (unfed-early versus fed-late). After more than 20 selection bouts, female mating frequency decreased gradually in the unfed-early reproducing lines, whereas it remained high in the other lines.