Male Mating Preference for Larger Females Does Not Vary Among Age Classes in the Long-Lived Beetle <i>Bolitotherus cornutus</i>.

ABSTRACT: Theory and past experimental work suggest that as males age, the strength of their mate preference should decrease. However, the empirical work investigating this question has primarily been conducted in insects that have very short life spans and often live for just a single mating season. This leaves a gap in our understanding of the relationship between male mate preference and age across taxa, as age can conflate with other ecological changes in a single mating season. In this study, we ask how the strength of preference for large female body size changes as males age in a long-lived insect, Bolitotherus cornutus. We used a two-pronged approach of both laboratory behavior trials and cross-sectional analyses of observations in a wild metapopulation to answer this question. We fou

SUBMITTER: Jiron GM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12353013 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature