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151 results for “mate preference”
Maternal effects on the advertisement signals and mate preferences of adult offspring in Enchenopa treehoppers (Hemiptera: Membracidae)
<p>We tested for maternal effects on the mating signals and mate preferences of adult offspring in a plant-feeding insect that communicates via plant-borne vibrational signals. We experimentally manipulated an aspect of the social environment experienced by egg-laying mothers: aggregation density. We detected a strong maternal effect in a male signal trait, with sons of mothers that experienced low aggregation density signaling more. We also detected a weak maternal effect on female mate preferences, with daughters of mothers that experienced low aggregation density being less selective. We discuss the evolutionary consequences of these maternal effects in terms of the signal-preference relationship; the maintenance of variation under selection; whether they may be beneficial for offspring; and potential mechanisms that may be involved in their expression.</p>
Developmental temperature alters the thermal sensitivity of courtship activity and signal-preference relationships, but not mating rates
<p><span>Mating behaviours are susceptible to novel or stressful thermal conditions, particularly for ectothermic organisms. One way to deal with changes in thermal conditions is to exhibit developmental plasticity, whereby the thermal sensitivity of mating behaviours depend on developmental conditions. </span></p> <p><span>We test how developmental temperature affects the thermal sensitivity of courtship behaviour and mating rates, as well as mating signal and preference coupling. </span></p> <p><span>We rear treehoppers under two temperature regimes and then test how a range of ambient temperature affects behaviours involved in the coordination of mating. We also test for sex-specific thermal sensitivity and developmental plasticity.</span></p> <p><span>We find developmental plasticity in the thermal sensitivity of courtship behaviour and mating signals for males. However, we found no developmental plasticity in females, and no change in the thermal sensitivity of mating rates.</span></p> <p><span>We discuss the implications of signal-preference decoupling for sexual selection, how reversible acclimation may drive sex-specific results, and the potential for mismatches between developmental and mating thermal environments under future climate change predictions. </span><span><br></span></p>
Data From: Females alter their mate preferences depending on hybridization risk
<p><span>Mating with another species is often maladaptive because it generally results in no or low-fitness offspring. When hybridization is sufficiently costly, individuals should avoid mating with heterospecifics even if it reduces their ability to mate with high-quality conspecifics that resemble heterospecifics. Here, we used spadefoot toads, <em>Spea multiplicata</em>, to evaluate whether females alter their preferences for conspecific male sexual signals (call rate) depending on heterospecific presence. When presented with conspecific signals against a background including both conspecific and heterospecific signals, females preferred male traits that were most dissimilar to heterospecifics—even though these signals are potentially associated with lower-quality mates. However, when these same females were presented with a background that included only conspecific signals, some females switched their preferences, choosing conspecific signals that were exaggerated and indicative of high-quality conspecific mates. Because only some females switched their preferences between these two chorus treatments, there was no population-level preference for exaggerated male signals in the absence of heterospecifics. Thus, hybridization risk can impact mate choice and thereby alter patterns of sexual selection. These results also emphasize that reproductive barriers between species (such as mate choice) can be context-dependent, with important implications for the origins and maintenance of species boundaries.</span></p>
Mate preferences act independently on different elements of visual signals in Heliconius butterflies
<p>Mating cues are often comprised of several elements, which can act independently, or in concert to attract a suitable partner. Individual elements may also function in other contexts, such as predator defence or camouflage. In <em>Heliconius</em> butterflies, wing patterns comprise several individual colour pattern elements, which advertise the butterflies' toxicity to predators. These wing patterns are also mating cues and males predominantly court females that possess the same wing pattern as their own. However, it is not known whether male preference is based on the full wing pattern or only individual pattern elements. We compared preferences of male <em>H. erato lativitta</em> between female models with the full wing pattern and those with some pattern elements removed. We found no differences in preference between the full wing pattern model and a model with pattern elements removed, indicating that the complete composition of all elements is not essential to the mating signal. Wing pattern preferences also contribute to pre-mating isolation between two other Heliconius taxa, <em>H. erato cyrbia</em> and <em>H. himera</em>, therefore, we next compared preferences for the same models in these species. <em>H. erato cyrbia</em> and <em>H. himera</em> strongly differed in preferences for the models, potentially providing a mechanism for how pre-mating isolation acts between these species. These findings suggest that contrasting levels of selective constraint act on elements across the wing pattern.</p>
Neural, genetic, and developmental changes underlie evolving butterfly mate preference
<p>Many studies have linked genetic variation to behavior, but the links between that variation and the neural circuits that drive behavior remain elusive. We investigated the architecture of mate choice behavior in <em>Heliconius</em> butterflies, which use vision to identify preferred mates based on wing color patterns. We found that <em>Heliconius</em> <em>cydno</em> mate preference is associated with inter-photoreceptor inhibition of ultraviolet-sensitive photoreceptors (PRs) by long-wavelength sensitive PRs; identified a small number of genetic loci associated with preference variation; and began to link these multiple layers of behavior variation together through analyses of developmental gene networks. Our results support the idea that altered peripheral neural computations, driven by changes to underlying developmental genetic processes, can significantly and rapidly alter essential behaviors. </p> <p>This dataset contains processed data, scripts, and notebooks that were used to analyze the RNA-seq data presented in the associated publication. </p>
Mate preferences act independently on different elements of visual signals in Heliconius butterflies
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Effects of the maternal social environment on the mating signals and mate preferences of adult offspring in Enchenopa treehoppers
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The contributions of direct and indirect selection to the evolution of mating preferences
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Data From: Females alter their mate preferences depending on hybridization risk
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Genetic, developmental and neural changes underlying evolving butterfly mate preference
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Developmental temperature alters the thermal sensitivity of courtship activity and signal-preference relationships, but not mating rates
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The relationship between a combinatorial processing rule and a continuous mate preference function in an insect
<p>Mate choice involves processing signals that can reach high levels of complexity and feature multiple components, even in small animals with tiny brains. This raises the question of whether and how such organisms deal with this complexity. One solution involves combinatorial processing, whereby different signal elements are processed as single units. Combinatorial processing has been described in several mammals and birds, and recently in a vibrationally signalling insect, Enchenopa treehoppers. Here, we ask about the relationship between combinatorial rules and mate preferences for continuously varying signal features. Enchenopa male advertisement signals are composed of two elements: a 'whine' followed by a set of pulses. The dominant frequency of the whine and element combination both matter to females. We presented synthetic signals varying in element order (natural [whine-pulses], reverse [pulses-whine]) and in frequency to Enchenopa females and recorded their responses. The reverse combination resulted in a decrease in attractiveness of the signals, and also slightly changed the shape of the preference for frequency. We found that females could be classified into three 'types': females with both a strong preference and a strong combinatorial rule, females with both a weak preference and weak rule and females with a strong preference but a weak rule. Our results suggest that in Enchenopa signal processing, the mate preference for a continuous signal feature 'takes precedence' over, but also interacts with, the combinatorial rule. The relationship between the preference and the rule could evolve to take different forms according to selection on mate choice decisions. We suggest that exploring the relationship between such preferences and rules in species with more complex signals will bring insight into the evolution of the multi-component communication systems.</p>
Colorful traits in avian females, individual condition, reproductive performance, and male mate preferences: A meta-analytic approach
<p>Colorful ornaments in females are suggested to have evolved and be maintained by sexual selection. Although several studies have evaluated this idea evidence is still equivocal. Results from empirical studies have been compilated in reviews, but quantitative analyses have seldom been performed. Here, using a meta-analytic approach, we show that evidence from empirical studies conducted in birds, supports the ideas that colorful female ornaments are positively associated with individual condition, reproductive performance, and male-mate preferences. Hence, females' colorful traits, in birds, likely evolved and are maintained by sexual selection.</p>
Juvenile social experience and practice have a switch-like influence on adult mate preferences in an insect
<p>Social causes of variation in animal communication systems have important evolutionary consequences, including speciation. The relevance of these effects depends on how widespread they are among animals. There is evidence for such effects not only in birds and mammals, but also frogs and some insects and spiders. Here we analyse the social ontogeny of adult mate preferences in an insect, Enchenopa treehoppers. In these communal plant-feeding insects, individuals reared in isolation or in groups differ in their mate preferences, and the group-reared phenotype can be rescued by playbacks to isolation-reared individuals. We ask about the relative role of signalling experience and signalling practice during ontogeny on the development of adult mating preferences in Enchenopa females. Taking advantage of variation in the signal experience and signalling practice of isolation-reared individuals, we find switch-like effects for experience and practice on female mate preference phenotypes, with individuals having some experience and practice as juveniles best rescuing the group-reared preference phenotype. We discuss how understanding the nature and distribution of social-ontogenetic causes of variation in mate preferences and other sexual traits will bring new insights into how within- and between-population variation influences the evolution of communication systems.</p>
Data from: Poison frog color morphs express assortative mate preferences in allopatry but not sympatry
The concurrent divergence of mating traits and preferences is necessary for the evolution of reproductive isolation via sexual selection, and such coevolution has been demonstrated in diverse lineages. However, the extent to which assortative mate preferences are sufficient to drive reproductive isolation in nature is less clear. Natural contact zones between lineages divergent in traits and preferences provide exceptional opportunities for testing the predicted evolutionary consequences of such divergence. The strawberry poison frog (Oophaga pumilio) displays extreme color polymorphism in and around the young Bocas del Toro archipelago. In a transition zone between red and blue allopatric lineages, we asked whether female preferences diverged along with coloration, and whether any divergent preferences persist in a zone of sympatry. When choosing among red, blue and phenotypically intermediate males, females from monomorphic red and monomorphic blue populations both expressed assortative preferences. However, red, blue, and intermediate females from the contact zone all preferred red males, suggesting that divergent preferences may be insufficient to effect behavioral isolation. Our results highlight the complexity of behavioral isolation, and the need for studies that can reveal the circumstances under which divergent preferences do and do not contribute to speciation.
Data from: Hybridization and postzygotic isolation promote reinforcement of male mating preferences in a diverse group of fishes with traditional sex roles
Behavioral isolation is thought to arise early in speciation due to differential sexual and/or natural selection favoring different preferences and traits in different lineages. Alternatively, behavioral isolation can arise due to reinforcement favoring traits and preferences that prevent maladaptive hybridization. In darters, female preference for male coloration has been hypothesized to drive speciation, because behavioral isolation evolves before F1 inviability. However, as with many long-lived organisms, the fitness of second generation hybrids has not been assessed because raising animals to adulthood in the lab is challenging. Recently, reinforcement of male preferences has been implicated in darters because male preference for conspecific females is high in sympatry but absent in allopatry in multiple species pairs. The hypothesis that reinforcement accounts for behavioral isolation in sympatry assumes that hybridization and postzygotic isolation are present. Here, we used genomic and morphological data to demonstrate that hybridization is ongoing between orangethroat and rainbow darters and used hybrids collected from nature to measure postzygotic barriers across two hybrid generations. We observed sex ratio distortion in adult F1s and a dramatic reduction in backcross survival. Our findings indicate that selection to avoid hybridization promotes the evolution of male-driven behavioral isolation via reinforcement in this system.
Data from: Divergent male and female mate preferences do not explain incipient speciation between lizard lineages
<p>Diversification in sexual signals is often taken as evidence for the importance of sexual selection in speciation. However, in order for sexual selection to generate reproductive isolation between populations, both signals and mate preferences must diverge together. Furthermore, assortative mating may result from multiple behavioural mechanisms, including female mate preferences, male mate preferences and male-male competition; yet their relative contributions are rarely evaluated. Here, we explored the role of mate preferences and male competitive ability as potential barriers to gene flow between two divergent lineages of the tawny dragon lizard, Ctenophorus decresii, which differ in male throat coloration. We found stronger behavioural barriers to pairings between southern lineage males and northern lineage females than between northern males and southern females, indicating incomplete and asymmetric behavioural isolating barriers. These results were driven by both male and female mate preferences rather than lineage differences in male competitive ability. Intrasexual selection is therefore unlikely to drive the outcome of secondary contact in C. decresii, despite its widely acknowledged importance in lizards. Our results are consistent with the emerging view that although both male and female mate preferences can diverge alongside sexual signals, speciation is rarely driven by divergent sexual selection alone.</p> <p> </p>
Female mate preferences do not predict male sexual signals across populations
<p>New species can arise when female preferences and male sexual signals diverge across populations and thereby reduce mating between populations. Under this hypothesized mechanism for speciation, mate preferences and male signals should be correlated, but divergent, across populations. We evaluated this prediction using spadefoot toads (Spea multiplicata). We measured a sexually-selected male signal (call rate) for which female preferences are known to vary across populations in response to hybridization risk. Contrary to expectation, we found no correlation between male call rate and female preferences across populations. We discuss possible mechanisms of this pattern, including the effect of gene flow from heterospecifics on male call rate. Our results suggest that, even when populations vary in mating traits, the independent evolution of female preferences and male sexual signals might impede reproductive isolation between populations. </p>
Data from: Mate choice vs mate preference: inferences about color-assortative mating differ between field and lab assays of poison frog behavior
Co-divergence of mating traits and mate preferences can lead to behavioral isolation among lineages in early stages of speciation. However, mate preferences only limit gene flow when expressed as mate choice, and numerous factors might be more important than preferences in nature. In the extremely color polytypic strawberry poison frog (Oophaga pumilio), female mate preferences have co-diverged with color in most allopatric populations tested. Whether these lab-assayed preferences predict mating (gene flow) in the wild remains unclear. We observed courting pairs in a natural contact zone between red and blue lineages until oviposition or courtship termination. We found color-assortative mating in a disturbed habitat with high population density, but not in a secondary forest with lower density. Our results suggest color-assortative O. pumilio mate choice in the wild, but also mating patterns that do not match those predicted by lab-assayed preferences.
Data from: Sympatry and parapatry among rocky reef cichlids of Lake Victoria explained by female mating preferences
<p><span>Work on the Lake Victoria cichlids <em>Pundamilia nyererei</em> (red dorsum males, deeper water), <em>Pundamilia pundamilia</em> (blue males, shallower water) and related species pairs has provided insights into processes of speciation. Here, we investigate female mating behaviour of five <em>Pundamilia </em>species and four of their F1-hybrids through mate choice trials and paternity testing. We discuss the results in the context of the geography of speciation and coexistence. Complete assortative mating was observed among all sympatric species. Parapatric species with similar depth habitat distributions interbred whereas other parapatric and allopatric species showed complete assortative mating. F1-hybrids mated exclusively with species accepted by females of the parental species. Although consistent with reinforcement in sympatry, a closer look at our results suggests otherwise and it is more likely that pre-existing female preferences influence which taxa can co-exist in sympatry. Regardless of the mechanism, mating preferences may influence species distribution in potentially hybridizing taxa, such as in the adaptive radiations of cichlid fish. We suggest that this at least partly explains why some species fail to establish breeding populations in locations where they are occasionally recorded. Our result support the notion that mating preferences of potentially cross-breeding species ought to be included in coexistence theory.</span></p>
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