Meeting Abstract
Marine copepods are an excellent model system in which to study mate assessment. Mate choice is well-documented in copepods, and a variety of approaches have been used to instigate copepod choosing behavior. However, while the end-product of copepod mate choice has been studied in a variety of experimental situations and it is now well established that chemosensation plays an important role in copepod mating decisions, the role of other criteria in copepod mating decisions remains unclear. Using powerful meta-analytical tools and current software built for modern phylogenetic analysis, we confirm that across class Copepoda, choice of mates is a commonly observed behavior. A strong signal for mate choice persists when controlling for phylogenetic relationships between species, genera and orders. The inclusion of a phylogenetic control allows us to reliably compare the magnitude of recorded mate discrimination in diverse groups of copepods with different life history parameters, feeding behaviors, and ecological niches. We investigated the influence of experimental design on copepod mating behavior including assessments of the different types of stimuli that were employed and the density of individuals in the test environments. Critically, we grouped individual types of stimuli together under categories of criteria that copepods use to partition among potential mates, and we used these categories to investigate the strength and patterns of mate choice behavior. Although we found evidence for mate choice across comparisons, we also observed that mate choice can be influenced both by unique ecological and experimental factors. The compiled evidence in our meta-analysis suggests that copepods choose mates using multi-leveled criteria including assessment of species identity, discrimination at the population level, and, possibly, choice between mates of variable individual quality.
