TY  - JOUR
AB  - In animal species with high male mating effort, males often find themselves in a dilemma: by increasing their mating effort, the gain from each copulation increases but simultaneously reduces available resources and, thus, the opportunity for future copulations. Therefore, we expect males to spend less reproductive resources on matings that provide low reproductive potential, thereby saving resources for future copulations, possibly with high-quality females, a sort of cryptic male choice. However, the strength of the trade-off between nvestment in a current mating and resources available for future matings must not be the same for all males. Males with relatively high mating costs should allocate their limited resources more cautiously than males with more plentiful resources. Here, we examine this prediction in the scorpionfly Panorpa cognata. Prior to copulation, males produce a large salivary mass on which females feed during copulation. We show that the production of larger salivary masses leads to longer copulations. Moreover, the size of the salivary gland and salivary mass increases with increasing male condition. However, males in poor condition make a relatively higher mating investment than males in good condition. We therefore expect male condition to influence cryptic male choice. In accordance with our hypothesis, only males in poor condition choose cryptically, producing larger salivary masses in copulations with females of high fecundity.
DA  - 2001
DO  - 10.1098/rspb.2000.1423
KW  - nuptial gift
KW  - Panorpa
KW  - sexual selection
KW  - sperm competition
KW  - copulation duration
LA  - eng
IS  - 1468
M2  - 729
PY  - 2001
SN  - 0962-8452
SP  - 729-735
T2  - Proceedings of the Royal Society B
TI  - Strategic male mating effort and cryptic male choice in a scorpionfly
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0070-pub-23957222
Y2  - 2024-12-26T19:31:58
ER  -