Female choice for sick males over healthy males: Consequences for offspring

Sexual selection theory indicates that ornament expression in males is in close relation to their condition. This “honesty” relationship serves as the basis for female choice: Females would mate with healthy males over sick males after assessing male ornament signal expression and derive benefits fo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ethology 2019-04, Vol.125 (4), p.241-249
Main Authors: Reyes‐Ramírez, Alicia, Enríquez‐Vara, Jhony N., Rocha‐Ortega, Maya, Téllez‐García, Aldo, Córdoba‐Aguilar, Alex, Bertram, Susan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal behavior
Beetles
Eclosion
Eggs
Entomopathogenic fungi
female choice
Females
Fitness
Fungi
Implants
Infections
Lipids
male signal
Males
Mate selection
Offspring
offspring viability
Progeny
Sexual selection
Survival
Tenebrio molitor
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Summary:Sexual selection theory indicates that ornament expression in males is in close relation to their condition. This “honesty” relationship serves as the basis for female choice: Females would mate with healthy males over sick males after assessing male ornament signal expression and derive benefits for their progeny. Here, we investigated female mate choice for infected and non‐infected males, male survival after infection (to corroborate the negative effect of infection), and fitness consequences of female preferences using Tenebrio molitor beetles. Male infection was produced having two types of challenges as follows: males infected with entomopathogenic fungi and males infected with nylon implants. Similar to previous studies, we corroborated that females preferred fungus‐infected males over positive control, negative control, and nylon‐challenged males. Survival was the lowest for fungus‐treated males followed by nylon‐treated and control males. Females mated with fungus‐treated males laid fewer and smaller eggs, and the laid eggs had less lipid content with a reduced eclosion success compared to females mated with non‐challenged males. Our interpretation is that fungus‐treated males invested their energetic resources to increase their attractiveness at the risk of survival, in a terminal investment fashion. Females, however, would have corrected their choice by investing less in their offspring.
ISSN:0179-1613
1439-0310
DOI:10.1111/eth.12854