Waking beauties: Mating quiescence in arachnid females

CARGNELUTTI, FRANCO I.; BOLLATTI, FEDRA A; IZQUIERDO, MATÍAS A.; ABREGÚ, DÉBORA; OVIEDO-DIEGO, MARIELA A.; VRECH, DAVID E.; OLIVERO, PAOLA A.; CALBACHO-ROSA, LUCÍA S.; SIMIAN, CATALINA; PALEN-PIETRI, ROCÍO; MATTONI, CAMILO I.; PERETTI, ALFREDO V.

ADVANCES IN THE STUDY OF BEHAVIOR

ELSEVIER ACADEMIC PRESS INC

Lugar: Burlington, MA, Estados Unidos; Año: 2022

0065-3454

Although strongly criticized during the 90s, male bias in sexual selection studies is still rooted in science. Arachnids are not an exception, with most studies ignoring female behaviors or even reporting its absence during mating interactions. A stunning example is female quiescence during or after copulation, a behavior defined with different terms that frequently nullify females’ autonomy. Although female quiescence is mainly reported for spiders, it also occurs in other arachnid orders. In this review, we first systematically compiled information on the occurrence of female quiescence in arachnids, a major arthropod clade that includes 13 orders and more than 100,000 species. Then, we (i) propose a terminology that best represents the available information in the literature, (ii) determine whether male behaviors trigger female quiescence, (iii) evaluate the generality of hypotheses formulated for some specific taxa, and (iv) suggest possible contexts that may favor the evolution of female quiescence in arachnids. In the literature search, we found reports of female quiescence mainly in three orders: Araneae, Scorpiones, and Solifugae. We propose ‘mate choice’ and ‘communication during copulation’ as the two main hypotheses to explain female quiescence. In both hypotheses, females have an active role, contrasting with other hypotheses that interpret female quiescence as a male-induced behavior. Since the reports are usually vague, without a behavioral description, we encourage researchers to document and describe the female mating quiescence behavior in more detail and carefully name each behavioral unit, avoiding setting indirect hypotheses still not tested.