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© 1995 International Society for Behavioral Ecology

research-article

Divergence in male mating tactics between two populations of the soapberry bug: II. Genetic change and the evolution of a plastic reaction norm in a variable social environment

Scott P. Carroll1, and Patrice Showers Corneli2

1Department of Biology, University of Utah Salt Lake city, UT 84112, USA 2Department of Mathematics, University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA

S.P Carroll, who is now at the Center for Population Biology University of California, Davis CA 95616, USA. P. Shower Corneli is now at the Depart ment of Human Genetics, Uni versity of Utah, Salt Lake City UT 84112, USA.

ABSTRACT

Many social behaviors are conditional, but behavioral comparisons between populations do not normally distinguish genetic and environmental causation. As a result, the opportunity to test predictions about the evolution of strategic conditionality (genotype x environment interaction) is lost. We apply these concepts in an examination of how interpopulation differences in mean and variance of sex ratio have led to genetic differences in the allocation of male effort to mate guarding versus nonguarding between genetically isolated populations of the soapberry bug in Oklahoma and Florida. We observed the mating behavior of males from the two populations at a series of experimental sex ratios, and modeled their mating decisions as first-order Markov chains of independent mating states. Likelihood ratio tests of these behavioral sequences showed that the populations differed significantly in their response to sex ratio, and that only males from the variable environment (Oklahoma) altered their behavior in response to differences in female availability among the treatments. The flexible strategy of this population may be adaptive and probably has evolved in response to sex ratio variability.

Key words: alternative mating tactics, geographic variation, norm of reaction, phenotypic plasticity, sex ratio. [Behav Ecol 6:46–56 (1995)].


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