Male‐Mimicking Females Increase Male‐Male Interactions, and Decrease Male Survival and Condition in a Female‐Polymorphic Damselfly

Authors

• Eben Gering, University of Texas at Austin; Michigan State UniversityFollow

ORCID

0000-0002-1270-6727

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Evolution

ISSN

0014-3820

Publication Date

5-2017

Keywords

Sexual conflict, Female polymorphism, Male‐male interactions, Population dynamics

Abstract

Biologists are still discovering diverse and powerful ways sexual conflicts shape biodiversity. The present study examines how the proportion of females in a population that exhibit male mimicry, a mating resistance trait, influences conspecific males’ behavior, condition, and survival. Like most female‐polymorphic damselflies, Ischnura ramburii harbors both “andromorph” females, which closely resemble males, and sexually dimorphic “gynomorph” counterparts. There is evidence that male mimicry helps andromorphs evade detection and harassment, but males can also learn to target locally prevalent morph(s) via prior mate encounters. I hypothesized that the presence of male mimics could therefore predispose males to mate recognition errors, and thereby increase rates of costly male‐male interactions. Consistent with this hypothesis, male‐male interaction rates were highest in mesocosms containing more andromorph (vs. gynomorph) females. Males in andromorph‐biased mesocosms also had lower final body mass and higher mortality than males assigned to gynomorph‐majority treatments. Male survival and body mass were each negatively affected by mesocosm density, and mortality data revealed a marginally significant interaction between andromorph frequency and population density. These findings suggest that, under sufficiently crowded conditions, female mating resistance traits such as male mimicry could have pronounced indirect effects on male behavior, condition, and survival.

DOI

10.1111/evo.13221

Volume

71

Issue

5

First Page

1390

Last Page

1396

Comments

© 2017 The Author(s). Evolution © 2017 The Society for the Study of Evolution.

Additional Comments

NSF grant #: 1110695

NSUWorks Citation

Gering, Eben. 2017. "Male‐Mimicking Females Increase Male‐Male Interactions, and Decrease Male Survival and Condition in a Female‐Polymorphic Damselfly." Evolution 71, (5): 1390-1396. doi:10.1111/evo.13221.