Meeting Abstract
Ground-active wolf spiders must combat constant exposure to soil-dwelling parasites and pathogens, as well as the potential for exposure from food and water sources. As a consequence, these spiders have developed an effective innate immune system. In this study, we examine the impact of bacterial infection on a terrestrial wolf spider species, Schizocosa ocreata. This species has energetically costly multimodal courtship, which has previously been shown to be negatively affected by bacterial infection as a juvenile. In the current study, we evaluated the impact of infection by a bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa as an adult on sexual signaling and mating success. We found that there is a correlation between tuft symmetry and intensity of infection, and that females may be able to detect whether males are infected. In addition, we found that infection as an adult did not impact mating success, but that there is evidence that infection can be transferred during copulation. This indicates that there may be complex direct and indirect relationships between sexual signaling and immunity in this species, and potentially a role for female mate choice to include the detection of infection.
