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Behavioral Ecology Advance Access originally published online on October 12, 2005
Behavioral Ecology 2006 17(1):1-5; doi:10.1093/beheco/ari093
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

How outcrossing hermaphrodites sense the presence of conspecifics and suppress female allocation

Dása Schleicherová, Maria Cristina Lorenzi and Gabriella Sella

Department of Animal and Human Biology, University of Turin, Via Accademia Albertina 13, 10123 Turin, Italy

Address correspondence to M.C. Lorenzi. E-mail: cristina.lorenzi{at}unito.it.

One of the greatest remaining problems in the field of sex allocation is the variation across species of the extent to which individuals adjust their offspring sex ratio or sex allocation according to environmental conditions. Particularly in the field of sex allocation, there is a lack of research on the mechanisms and cues involved. We address this problem in the outcrossing simultaneous hermaphroditic polychaete Ophryotrocha diadema, which shifts sex allocation by suppressing the female function in the presence of reproductive competitors or multiple partners. We document that O. diadema hermaphrodites can evaluate group size by means of a species-specific chemical released by mature individuals in water. The perception of such a water-borne signal is sufficient to trigger the observed shift in sex allocation, i.e., a suppression of the female function, irrespective of the frequency of encounters with conspecifics. Under natural conditions, such a pheromone will favor partners' encounters and the adjustment of individual sex allocation according to the numbers of reproductive competitors and/or potential partners.

Key words: adjustment, assessment, chemical cues, perceptual abilities, polychaetes, sex allocation.


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