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dc.contributor.authorGreenway, E. V. (Ginny)
dc.contributor.authorBalfour, Vicki L.
dc.contributor.authorShuker, David M.
dc.date.accessioned2017-06-07T09:30:13Z
dc.date.available2017-06-07T09:30:13Z
dc.date.issued2017-07
dc.identifier249730731
dc.identifier302086b2-ebcf-4b78-85ff-a46b24f55080
dc.identifier85020264523
dc.identifier000405821200007
dc.identifier.citationGreenway , E V , Balfour , V L & Shuker , D M 2017 , ' Can females choose to avoid mating failure in the seed bug Lygaeus simulans ? ' , Animal Behaviour , vol. 129 , pp. 61-69 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2017.05.004en
dc.identifier.issn0003-3472
dc.identifier.otherORCID: /0000-0003-4203-3057/work/140362641
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10023/10927
dc.descriptionWe thank the Natural Environmental Research Council (Ph.D. studentship to E.V.G.) and the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (Undergraduate Project Scholarship awarded to V.L.B.) for funding.en
dc.description.abstractIt is becoming increasingly clear that copulation does not necessarily always lead to offspring production in many organisms, despite fertilization success presumably being under both strong natural and sexual selection. In the seed bug Lygaeus simulans, between 40% and 60% of copulations fail to produce offspring, with this ‘mating failure’ representing a significantly repeatable male-associated trait. Mating has been demonstrated to be costly in this species and, as such, we might expect females to minimize the chance of mating failure by displaying a preference for males with higher insemination success where possible. After assaying males for mating failure, we asked whether females preferred males with a history of successful inseminations versus unsuccessful inseminations in pairwise mate choice trials. Contrary to our expectations, females showed no preference for more successful over less successful males. Moreover, females showed no preference for larger males in the choice trials, even though larger males were significantly more likely to successfully inseminate females in the initial assay. This apparent lack of female precopulatory choice suggests that postcopulatory choice mechanisms may be key to mating failure in this species. However, this does not necessarily explain why females pay the cost of mating with males they will then reject via postcopulatory processes. More generally, our results suggest that mating failure may play a largely underappreciated role in mating systems evolution, influencing both the cost of choosiness, and the costs and benefits of polyandry.
dc.format.extent9
dc.format.extent699193
dc.language.isoeng
dc.relation.ispartofAnimal Behaviouren
dc.subjectMating failureen
dc.subjectCryptic female choiceen
dc.subjectSexual selectionen
dc.subjectPolyandryen
dc.subjectInsect reproductionen
dc.subjectQH301 Biologyen
dc.subjectQL Zoologyen
dc.subjectNDASen
dc.subject.lccQH301en
dc.subject.lccQLen
dc.titleCan females choose to avoid mating failure in the seed bug Lygaeus simulans?en
dc.typeJournal articleen
dc.contributor.institutionUniversity of St Andrews. School of Biologyen
dc.contributor.institutionUniversity of St Andrews. Scottish Oceans Instituteen
dc.contributor.institutionUniversity of St Andrews. Institute of Behavioural and Neural Sciencesen
dc.contributor.institutionUniversity of St Andrews. Centre for Biological Diversityen
dc.identifier.doi10.1016/j.anbehav.2017.05.004
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.date.embargoedUntil2017-06-06


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