Meeting Abstract

23.5  Tuesday, Jan. 4  Practice makes perfect: non-conceptive sexual experience as juveniles diminishes individuals’ latency to copulate when mature PRUITT, JN*; RIECHERT, SE; University of California, Davis; University of Tennessee, Knoxville Agelenopsis@gmail.com

Although the evolution of sex has proven a perennial topic in evolutionary biology, the function of non-conceptive sexual behavior in animal societies is more enigmatic. Here we consider the function of non-conceptive sexual displays in the comb-footed spider, Anelosimus studiosus. In this species, mature males and juvenile females engage in iterative displays of courtship behavior and copulatory posturing. We tested whether experienced individuals mated more rapidly with established versus sexually-naïve partners, and whether the amount of individuals’non-conceptive sexual experience was associated with their latency to copulate. We found that pairs with at least one sexually experienced individual mated more rapidly than pairs of purely inexperienced individuals. Furthermore, we detected a negative association between the number of non-conceptive bouts experienced by an individual and their latency to engage in conceptive sex. These findings suggest non-conceptive sexual displays serve as a kind of play behavior, which help hone individuals’ courtship and/or sexual finesse.