Costs of weaponry: Unarmed males sire more offspring than armed males in a male-dimorphic mite.

ABSTRACT: Morphological structures used as weapons in male-male competition are not only costly to develop but are also probably costly to maintain during adulthood. Therefore, having weapons could reduce the energy available for other fitness-enhancing actions, such as post-copulatory investment. We tested the hypothesis that armed males make lower post-copulatory investments than unarmed males, and that this difference will be most pronounced under food-limited conditions. We performed two experiments using the male-dimorphic bulb mite Rhizoglyphus robini, in which males are either armed "fighters" or unarmed "scramblers." Firstly, we tested whether fighters and scramblers differed in their reproductive output after being starved or fed for 1 or 2 weeks. Secondly, we measured the reproductive outp

SUBMITTER: Van den Beuken TPG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7379726 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature