Meeting Abstract
Males of many species invest in elaborate and costly weapons in order to secure access to mates. The permanent loss of one of these sexually selected weapons is assumed to reduce male competitive ability and subsequent reproductive success. In the leaf-footed bug Narnia femorata, autotomy (loss of the weaponized hind limb) during development reduces competitive success. However, autotomy is also associated with the growth of larger testes via resource reallocation to primary reproductive tissue. Here we ask if autotomy also influences male mating behavior in this species. We then explore whether the developmental stage at which weapon loss occurs affects mating behavior. We assigned fourth instar juveniles, fifth instar juveniles, newly eclosed adults and two-week-old adults to either control (unmanipulated) or autotomized (induced left hind limb loss) treatments before pairing these focal males with a mating partner upon reproductive maturity. We observed and scored the occurrence and duration of a range of mating behaviors and found that autotomy did in fact impact mating duration; autotomized males mated for longer than control males, potentially compensating for their lost weapon by increasing time spent mating with females. This change in mating behavior may enable autotomized males to maximize their reproductive success when given a mating opportunity and provides insight into the complex interactions between behavior and morphology.
