Black widows as plastic wallflowers: female choosiness increases with indicators of high mate availability in a natural population.

ABSTRACT: Female choice is an important driver of sexual selection, but can be costly, particularly when choosy females risk remaining unmated or experience delays to reproduction. Thus, females should reduce choosiness when mate encounter rates are low. We asked whether choosiness is affected by social context, which may provide reliable information about the local availability of mates. This has been demonstrated in the lab, but rarely under natural conditions. We studied western black widow spiders (Latrodectus hesperus) in the field, placing experimental final-instar immature females so they were either 'isolated' or 'clustered' near naturally occurring conspecifics (≥10 m or ≤1 m, respectively, from a microhabitat occupied by at least one other female). Upon maturity, females in both treatments

SUBMITTER: Scott CE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7265538 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature