Does Reproductive Investment Change with Age in Tsetse flies, Glossina morsitans morsitans (Diptera: Glossinidae)?

1. Viviparous insects such as tsetse (Glossina spp.) provide unusual opportunities to compare age-related changes in the proportion of maternal resources transferred to offspring. 2. In laboratory populations of Glossina morsitans morsitans the survival of females was high for the first 60 days of a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Functional ecology 1998-12, Vol.12 (6), p.866-870
Main Authors: Langley, P. A., Clutton-Brock, T. H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age
Animal and plant ecology
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Animals
Autoecology
Biological and medical sciences
Entomology
Fecundity
Female animals
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Glossina morsitans morsitans
Glossinidae
Human ecology
Insect larvae
Insect reproduction
Maternal resource transfer
Mating behavior
offspring size
Parental investment
Protozoa. Invertebrata
reproductive strategy
Tsetse flies
viviparous insects
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Summary:1. Viviparous insects such as tsetse (Glossina spp.) provide unusual opportunities to compare age-related changes in the proportion of maternal resources transferred to offspring. 2. In laboratory populations of Glossina morsitans morsitans the survival of females was high for the first 60 days of adult life but declined rapidly thereafter. 3. Average longevity did not differ significantly between mated and unmated females (93.6 and 90 days. respectively). 4. Nutritional state in terms of fat content and residual dry mass did not decline with adult female age. 5. The fecundity of mated females was constant for the first 60 days of adult life and declined only slightly thereafter. 6. Offspring size did not change towards the end of the adult female lifespan and there was no evidence of an increase in the allocation of resources to reproduction in older females. 7. Results contrast with those obtained recently for vertebrates and may indicate that age-related changes in offspring size in Glossina are not adaptive, or that so few females reach old age under natural conditions that there is no selection for a strategy of terminal investment.
ISSN:0269-8463
1365-2435
DOI:10.1046/j.1365-2435.1998.00262.x