CRYPTIC FEMALE CHOICE IN ARTHROPODS: PATTERNS, MECHANISMS AND PROSPECTS

PERETTI, A. V.; AISENBERG, A.

SPRINGER

Lugar: Zurich; Año: 2015 p. 509

978-3-319-17894-3

Sexual selection is currently the target of multiple and controversial theoretical and experimental studies. Selection on mating and post-mating patterns can result from several different mechanisms, including sperm competition, extreme sexual conflict (i.e. sexual coercion and/or sexually antagonistic coevolution), and cryptic female choice (or a combination of them). Thirty years have passed since Randy Thornhill (1) realized that processes occurring after copulation had began and that are under direct female control can influence male chances of paternity. The cornerstone book of William G. Eberhard (2) seventeen years ago compiled impressive evidence regarding the many possible mechanisms of female control of paternity, and much subsequent research focused on female roles during and after mating, documenting the importance of female decisions for male reproductive success. Discrimination among males during or after copulation is called cryptic female choice because it occurs after intromission, the event that was formerly used as the definitive criterion of male reproductive success, and is therefore usually difficult to detect and confirm. Because it sequentially follows intra- and intersexual interactions that occur before copulation, cryptic female choice has the power to alter or negate precopulatory sexual selection. However, though female roles in biasing male paternity after copulation have been proposed for a number of species distributed in many animal groups, cryptic female choice continues to be sometimes underestimated. Furthermore, during recent years the concept of sexual conflict has been frequently misused, linking sexual selection by female choice irrevocably and exclusively with sexually antagonistic co-evolution, without exploring other alternatives. The present book revisits cryptic female choice in arthropods through detailed contributions from across the world to answer key behavioral, ecological and evolutionary questions. The reader will find a critical summary of major breakthroughs in taxon-oriented chapters, offering many new perspectives and cases to explore, sometimes sharing unpublished data. Many groups of arthropods such as spiders, harvestmen, flies, moths, crickets, earwigs, beetles, eusocial insects, shrimps and crabs will be exposed and discussed. It will be an essential source of knowledge of how two fields, selective cooperation and individual sex-interests work together by cryptic female choice in nature, using arthropods as model organisms.