Stressful environments favor deceptive alternative mating tactics to become dominant.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Deceptive alternative mating tactics are commonly maintained at low frequencies within populations because males using them are less competitive and acquire lower fitness than those using dominant tactics. However, the successful invasion of a male deceptive tactic is plausible if deception carries no fitness cost to females. Among populations of the gift-giving spider Paratrechalea ornata, males very often offer females a deceptive worthless gift, rather than a nutritive gift. We tested the degree to which deceptive worthless gifts can occur in natural populations living under divergent environmental conditions (moderate and stressful). We examined the plasticity of morphological and behavioral traits and analyzed the fitness of females in relation to the gift type, als

SUBMITTER: Albo MJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10375696 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature