Meeting Abstract
Environmental conditions can have strong effects on an organism’s development, morphology, and fitness, often eclipsing the effects of genotypic variation. Diet, in particular, is known to have remarkable impacts on morphology and behavior across taxa. We investigated the impact of natural variation in seasonal diets on reproductive behavior and success, using the leaf-footed cactus bug (Narnia femorata), a hemimetabolous insect that feeds on a seasonally fluctuating resource. When seasonal variation causes a period of poor nutrition to coincide with a critical stage of development, how does it affect future reproduction? Newly eclosed adult females were allowed to mature on one of two, naturally occurring, seasonal diets, providing either excellent or poor nutrition (cactus with or without fruit). Then, after approximately 2 weeks (the age at which these insects typically become sexually mature), they were each provided excellent nutrition and a potential mate. We observed mating behavior (receptivity and mating duration) for three hours, and we then quantified fecundity (number of eggs laid) and fertility (eggs hatched) for 32 days, as well as obtaining female and male morphometric data. Preliminary analysis suggests that diet did not impact a female’s likelihood to mate, nor the proportion of her eggs that were viable, but it did affect her reproductive output by impacting the number of eggs she laid. These results may have implications for the impacts of environmental change on behavior, fitness, and population growth.
