Differences in sperm storage and remating propensity in between adult females of two morphotypes of the Anastrepha fraterculus (Diptera: Tephritidae) cryptic species complex

ABRAHAM SOLANA; RULL JUAN; MENDOZA MARIANA; LIENDO MARIA CLARA; DEVESCOVI, F.; RORIZ, A. KELLY; KOVALESKI ADALECIO; SEGURA DIEGO; VERA MARIA TERESA

BULLETIN OF ENTOMOLOGICAL RESEARCH

CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS

Lugar: Cambridge; Año: 2014 vol. 104 p. 376 - 382

0007-4853

The South Americanfruit fly, Anastrepha fraterculus, isa complex of cryptic species composed by at least seven morphotypes. Some of them, such as the Peruvian and Brazilian 1morphotypes (which includes Argentinean populations), exhibit strongpre-copulatory isolation, yet it is possible to obtain heterotypic crosses whenforcing copulation of adults under laboratory conditions. The cross involvingPeruvian males and Argentinean females produces F1 offspring with reducedviability in terms of egg hatch. This low hatchability could be caused by areduced amount of sperm transferred to and stored by females mated withheterotypic males, which in turn could affect their post-copulatory behavior. Totest these hypotheses, we investigated sperm transfer and female mating andremating behaviour for homotypic and heterotypic crosses between adults of two morphotypes(Brazilian 1 [Argentina] and Peruvian [Peru]) of the A. fraterculus cryptic species complex. As reported before, Argentineanmales and females mated earlier in the day than the other three matingcombinations. Peruvian females engaged in shorter copulation times thanArgentinean females. Peruvian females tended to store smaller quantities ofsperm than Argentinean females, and almost a half of the crosses involvingArgentinean males and Peruvian females were unsuccessful (no sperm transfer). However, there was no evidence that the crossbetween Peruvian males and Argentinean females resulted in storage of a criticallysmall amount of sperm (posing risk of sperm shortage). Argentinean females were morewilling to remate than Peruvian females, irrespective of male morphotype, butlatency to remating was not affected by male or female morphotype. This study showsthat mating behavior differs between someof the A. fraterculus complexmorphotypes, with female but not male morphotype determining femalelikelihood to remate.