Socially cued developmental plasticity affects condition-dependent trait expression

Condition-dependent sexually selected traits are thought to indicate an individual's quality or breeding value for fitness. Variation in developmental environments, however, introduces much complexity to resource allocation, and therefore, to phenotypic expression. The extent to which environment-specific developmental tactics interact with resource allocation and impinge on the relationship between condition and adult phenotype remains largely untested. Here, we used the black field cricket (Teleogryllus commodus), a species known to modify allocation tactics in response to both nutrition and social environments, to examine whether socially cued plasticity affects condition-dependent trait expression. We reared juvenile males in a 2 by 2 factorial experiment, crossing 2 social environments with 2 diets, and examined allocation toward life-history, morphological traits and costly sexual signaling (i.e., calling) in adulthood. Although diet significantly affected phenotypes during the second-last juvenile stadium, shifts in development rate in response to both the nutrient and social environment during the last juvenile stadium obscured the effects of condition on male phenotypes. Our results suggest that sexually selected signals may be poor indicators of individual quality due to interactions among sources of environmental variance. We suggest that the correlation between trait expression and condition is more complex under natural environments than most literature in this area assume

Multi-Modal Courtship in the Peacock Spider, Maratus volans (O.P.-Cambridge, 1874)

The peacock spider, Maratus volans, has one of the most elaborate courtship displays in arthropods. Using regular and high-speed video segments captured in the lab, we provide detailed descriptions of complete male courtship dances. As research on jumping spiders has demonstrated that males of some species produce vibrations concurrently with visual displays, we also used laser vibrometry to uncover such elements for this species. Our recordings reveal and describe for the first time, that M. volans males use vibratory signals in addition to complex body ornaments and motion displays. The peacock spider and other closely related species are outstanding study organisms for testing hypotheses about the evolution and functional significance of complex displays, thus, this descriptive study establishes a new model system for behavioral ecology, one that certainly stands to make important contributions to the field

Data from: The active metabolic rate predicts a male spider’s proximity to females and expected fitness

Conspicuous traits, such as weaponry and body size, are often correlated with fitness. By contrast, we understand less about how inconspicuous physiological traits affect fitness. Not only is linking physiology directly to fitness a challenge, but in addition, behavioural studies most often focus on resting or basal metabolic rates, resulting in a poor understanding of how active metabolic rates affect fitness. Here we use the golden orb-web spider (Nephila plumipes), a species for which proximity to a female on the web predicts a male's paternity share, to examine the role of resting and active metabolic rates in fitness. Using a semi-natural experimental set-up, we show that males closer to a female have higher active metabolic rates than males further from females. This higher metabolic activity is paralleled by increased citrate synthase activity, suggesting greater mitochondrial densities. Our results link both higher active metabolic rates and increased citrate synthase activity with fitness. Coupled with the behaviour and life history of N. plumipes, these results provide insight into the evolution of physiological systems

Data from: The social factors driving settlement and relocation decisions in a solitary and aggregative spider

Both ecological and social factors play an important role in determining the structure of animal settlement patterns. While the ecological factors determining animal settlement are generally well known, the relative importance of social factors in mediating fine-scale settlement choices is poorly understood. As a result, we have little knowledge of why individuals choose to settle near specific neighbors. Here we used a web-building spider (Nephila plumipes) that settles both solitarily and next to neighbors within aggregations to examine the specific social factors that influence settlement decisions. Within experimental enclosures we observed the settlement patterns of females pre- and post-male release. This allowed us to compare two models of aggregative settlement in lekking species, the hotshot and preferences models, to examine the relative importance of a female’s phenotype and mate attraction to further dissect settlement and relocation decisions. We show that mate attraction increased with aggregation size, and that larger females were generally preferred, supporting both the hotshot and preference models of aggregative settlement. We further demonstrate that smaller females that attracted fewer males within an aggregation were most likely to relocate. Our results demonstrate how social feedback can affect initially state-dependent settlement decisions, thereby highlighting the dynamic nature of settlement

Kasumovic&Seebacher Data

Kasumovic&Seebacher Dat

Prior mating success can affect allocation towards future sexual signaling in crickets

View the peer-reviewed version (peerj.com/articles/657), which is the preferred citable publication unless you specifically need to cite this preprint. Chiswell R, Girard M, Fricke C, Kasumovic MM. 2014. Prior mating success can affect allocation towards future sexual signaling in crickets. PeerJ 2:e657 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.657 P r i o r ma t i n g s u c c e s s c a n a ff e c t a l l o c a t i o n t o wa r d s f u t u r e s e x u a l s i g n a l l i n g i n c r i c k e t s F i t n e s s i s o f t e n c o r r e l a t e d wi t h t h e e x p r e s s i o n l e v e l o f a s e x u a l l y s e l e c t e d t r a i t . Ho we v e r , s e x u a l l y s e l e c t e d t r a i t s a r e c o s t l y t o e x p r e s s s u c h t h a t i n v e s t me n t i n t h e i r e x p r e s s i o n s h o u l d b e o p t i mi s e d t o ma x i mi z e t h e i r o v e r a l l fi t n e s s g a i n s . S o c i a l i n t e r a c t i o n s , i n t h e f o r m o f s u c c e s s f u l a n d u n s u c c e s s f u l ma t i n g s , ma y o ff e r ma l e s o n e t y p e o f f e e d b a c k a l l o wi n g t h e m t o g a u g e h o w t o a l l o c a t e t h e i r r e s o u r c e s t o wa r d s s e x u a l s i g n a l l i n g . He r e we t e s t e d wh e t h e r a d u l t ma l e b l a c k fi e l d c r i c k e t s ( T e l e o g r y l l u s c o mmo d u s ) mo d i f y t h e e x t e n t o f t h e i r c a l l i n g e ff o r t ( t h e s e x u a l l y s e l e c t e d t r a i t ) i n r e s p o n s e t o s u c c e s s f u l a n d u n s u c c e s s f u l ma t i n g s wi t h f e ma l e s . T o e x a mi n e t h e e ff e c t t h a t ma t i n g i n t e r a c t i o n s wi t h f e ma l e s h a v e o n i n v e s t me n t i n t o s e x u a l s i g n a l l i n g , we mo n i t o r e d ma l e c a l l i n g e ff o r t a f t e r ma t u r a t i o n a n d t h e n p r o v i d e d ma l e s wi t h a f e ma l e a t t wo p o i n t s wi t h i n t h e i r l i f e , ma n i p u l a t i n g wh e t h e r o r n o t ma l e s we r e a b l e t o s u c c e s s f u l l y ma t e e a c h t i me . Ou r r e s u l t s d e mo n s t r a t e t h a t ma l e s a l t e r t h e i r i n v e s t me n t t o wa r d s s e x u a l s i g n a l l i n g i n r e s p o n s e t o s u c c e s s f u l ma t i n g s , b u t o n l y i f t h e e x p e r i e n c e o c c u r s e a r l y t h e i r l i f e . Ma l e s t h a t ma t e d e a r l y i n t h e i r l i f e d e c r e a s e d t h e i r c a l l i n g e ff o r t s o o n e r t h a n ma l e s t h a t we r e d e n i e d a ma t i n g . Ou r r e s u l t s d e mo n s t r a t e t h a t s o c i a l f e e d b a c k i n t h e f o r m o f s u c c e s s f u l a n d u n s u c c e s s f u l ma t i n g s h a s t h e p o t e n t i a l t o a l t e r t h e e ff o r t a ma l e p l a c e s i n s e x u a l s i g n a l l i n g . P e e r J P r e P r i n t s | h t t p : / / d x . d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 7 2 8 7 / p e e r j . p r e p r i n t s

Trait compensation and sex-specific aging of performance in male and female professional basketball players

Phenotypic traits are often influenced by dynamic resource allocation trade-offs which, when occurring over the course of individual lifespan, may manifest as trait aging. Although aging is studied for a variety of traits that are closely tied to reproduction or reproductive effort, the aging of multiple traits related to fitness in other ways are less well understood. We took advantage of almost 30 years of data on human whole-organism performance in the National Basketball Association (USA) to examine trends of aging in performance traits associated with scoring. Given that patterns of aging differ between sexes in other animal species, we also analyzed a smaller dataset on players in the Women's National Basketball Association to test for potential sex differences in the aging of comparable traits. We tested the hypothesis that age-related changes in a specific aspect of overall performance can be compensated for by elevated expression of another, related aspect. Our analyses suggest that the aging of performance traits used in basketball is generally characterized by senescence in males, whereas age-related changes in basketball performance are less evident in females. Our data also indicate a different rate of senescence of different performance traits associated with scoring over a male's lifetime

Data for subsampling analyses

Data for subsampling analyse