Food Limitation but Not Enhanced Rates of Ejaculate Production Imposes Reproductive and Survival Costs to Male Crickets.

ABSTRACT: Estimating costs of ejaculate production is challenging. Metabolic investment in ejaculates may come at the expense of other physiological functions and may negatively affect future reproduction and/or survival. These trade-offs are especially likely to occur under constrained resource pools (e.g., poor nutrition). Here, we investigated costs of ejaculate production via trade-offs in the field cricket Gryllus bimaculatus. We experimentally increased rates of ejaculate production, while keeping an unmanipulated group, in adult males kept at high and low feeding regimes and tested the effects of our treatments on (i) somatic maintenance (i.e., changes in male body mass), (ii) future reproduction (i.e., the likelihood of producing a spermatophore and the viability of its sperm), and (iii) lif

SUBMITTER: McMahon S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8232169 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature