Post-copulatory female choice in gift-giving insects:

sensory exploitation or pursuit of good genes?

This is an NSF-funded project headed up by my major advisor Scott K. Sakaluk. The project attempts to address two potential mechanisms of female mate choice of male crickets who provide females with the largest nuptial gift: sensory exploitation and good genes hypotheses. The former hypothesis suggests that males donate food gifts at mating in order to exploit the female's pre-existing sensory bias to feed. Under this hypothesis, female consumption of the food gift may or may not be adaptive. Regardless, the male's interests are served by 'distracting' the female with the food gift long enough to ensure complete sperm transfer. The good genes hypothesis suggests that male food gifts provide an honest indicator of indirect benefits (e.g. male vigor, foraging ability, developmental stability). Under this hypothesis, female choice is adaptive and male's providing the largest food gifts are at a selective advantage.

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