Post-copulatory mate choice in sagebrush crickets

This is my master's thesis work which was recently completed at the University of Wyoming / National Park Service research station in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. What follows is an abstract of the paper I will present at the Midwest Animal Behavior Meetings to be held September 26-28 at the Ohio State University. For more detailed information on this project please e-mail me at JCJOHNS@ilstu.edu

ABSTRACT

Male sagebrush crickets (Cyphoderris strepitans) permit females to engage in an unusual form of sexual cannibalism during copulation: females feed on males' fleshy hind wings and ingest haemolymph oozing from the wounds they inflict. As a result, non-virgin males have fewer material resources to offer females than do virgin males, such that females should be selected to preferentially mate with high-investing, virgin males. We tested the hypothesis that male courtship feeding is maintained in this species through a post-copulatory female mating preference of males capable of supplying females with the highest material investment. Our results indicate that females experimentally prevented from wing feeding in their initial mating remate with subsequent males significantly sooner than females allowed to feed freely during their initial mating, resulting in ‘cryptic’ female choice of investing males. Thus, our results provide additional support for the idea that females possess many unexplored mechanisms by which they may subtly choose the sire of their offspring.

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