Skip Navigation

This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Lay Summary
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (69)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Blanckenhorn, W. U.
Right arrow Articles by Ward, P. I.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Blanckenhorn, W. U.
Right arrow Articles by Ward, P. I.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Behavioral Ecology Vol. 13 No. 3: 353-358
© 2002 International Society for Behavioral Ecology

The costs of copulating in the dung fly Sepsis cynipsea

Wolf U. Blanckenhorn, David J. Hosken, Oliver Y. Martin, Constanze Reim, Yvonne Teuschl and Paul I. Ward

Zoologisches Museum, Universität Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland

Address correspondence to W.U. Blanckenhorn. E-mail: wolfman{at}zoolmus.unizh.ch .

Finding, assessing, rejecting, and copulating with a mate is assumed to carry fitness costs, particularly for females, that have to be traded off against fitness benefits of mating such as increased fecundity, fertility, longevity, or better quality offspring. Female dung flies, Sepsis cynipsea (Diptera: Sepsidae), typically attempt to dislodge mounted males harassing them by vigorous shaking. Shaking duration has been shown to reflect both direct and indirect female choice in this species. The latter is an expression of the females' general reluctance to mate due to presumed costs of mating. We investigated the costs of copulation in the laboratory. Females were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups and allowed to copulate either not at all, once, or twice. The males' armored genitalia injured females internally during copula. Injuries were visible as sclerotized scars in the female ovipositor, and their occurrence increased with mating frequency. Presumably due to these injuries, mated females showed higher mortality. This effect was statistically independent from additional costs of reproduction related to oviposition, as copulation also increased lifetime egg production and tended to augment oviposition rate (eggs per day), while fertility (proportion of offspring emerged) was unaffected. We thus found high mortality costs of copulating, indicating substantial sexual conflict, which helps explain female reluctance to mate in this species.

Key words: female reluctance, genitalia, internal injuries, mating behavior, mating costs, sexual conflict, sexual selection.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Behav EcolHome page
M. Plath, A. M. Makowicz, I. Schlupp, and M. Tobler
Sexual harassment in live-bearing fishes (Poeciliidae): comparing courting and noncourting species
Behav. Ecol., July 1, 2007; 18(4): 680 - 688.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
J. Ronn, M. Katvala, and G. Arnqvist
Coevolution between harmful male genitalia and female resistance in seed beetles
PNAS, June 26, 2007; 104(26): 10921 - 10925.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Behav EcolHome page
M. Edvardsson and T. Tregenza
Why do male Callosobruchus maculatus harm their mates?
Behav. Ecol., July 1, 2005; 16(4): 788 - 793.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
P. L. M. Lee and G. C. Hays
Polyandry in a marine turtle: Females make the best of a bad job
PNAS, April 27, 2004; 101(17): 6530 - 6535.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 GeneticsHome page
F. Balloux and L. Lehmann
Random Mating With a Finite Number of Matings
Genetics, December 1, 2003; 165(4): 2313 - 2315.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Behav EcolHome page
E. H. Morrow, G. Arnqvist, and S. Pitnick
Adaptation versus pleiotropy: why do males harm their mates?
Behav. Ecol., November 1, 2003; 14(6): 802 - 806.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Behav EcolHome page
C. Muhlhauser and W. U. Blanckenhorn
The costs of avoiding matings in the dung fly Sepsis cynipsea
Behav. Ecol., May 1, 2002; 13(3): 359 - 365.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.