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Behavioral Ecology Vol. 11 No. 2: 220-227
© 2000 International Society for Behavioral Ecology
Female spadefoot toads compromise on mate quality to ensure conspecific matings
Department of Ecology, Ethology, and Evolution, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
Address correspondence to K. S. Pfennig at the Department of Biology, CB#3280, Coker Hall, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3280, USA. E-mail: kpfennig{at}email.unc.edu .
When high-quality conspecifics resemble heterospecifics, females may be unable to engage effectively in both species recognition (identification of conspecifics) and mate-quality recognition (identification of high-quality mates). Consequently, females that engage primarily in mate-quality recognition may risk heterospecific matings, and females that engage primarily in species recognition may risk mating with low-quality mates. I examined the evolutionary consequences of this conflict between species and mate-quality recognition in spadefoot toads, Spea multiplicata. I compared mate preferences and the fitness consequences of these preferences in spadefoot toad populations that did and did not overlap with congeners. In non-overlapping populations, S. multiplicata females preferred an extreme call character resembling that of heterospecifics, and they had more eggs fertilized. In overlapping populations, S. multiplicata females preferred those call characteristics that were closest to the norm for their population, and they did not receive the benefit of enhanced fertilization success. Thus, S. multiplicata females appear to trade off species and mate-quality recognition, such that those co-occurring with heterospecifics forgo the benefits of high-quality matings to ensure conspecific matings. These results suggest that the interaction between species and mate-quality recognition may influence mate choice decisions in important and nonintuitive ways.
Key words: mate choice, mate-quality recognition, species recognition, Scaphiopus couchii, Spea bombifrons, Spea multiplicata.
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