Meeting Abstract

S6-2.3  Jan. 5  Measuring the costs & benefits of receiving sperm in Drosophila melanogaster RICE, William/R*; STEWART, Andrew/D; MORROW, Edward/H; KUIJPER, Braum; Univ. of California; Univ. of California; Uppsala University; Uppsala University rice@lifesci.ucsb.edu

Female D. melanogaster commonly mate again (remate) before they have used all sperm form a prior mating. We evaluated the costs and benefits of this phenomena in a series of three experiments. First we measured the cost to females (in the currency of lifetime fecundity) of being inseminated different numbers of times. Second we measured the need for rapid remating by assessing the survival of stored sperm. Lastly, we measured the consequences of multiple mating on patterns of sperm precedence. We found that i) the cost of remating was initially small but that it accelerated rapidly as the number of remating increased, survival of stored sperm was high, and iii) patterns sperm precedence were stable over multiple matings.