Elsevier

Animal Behaviour

Volume 73, Issue 6, June 2007, Pages 943-954
Animal Behaviour

Male mate choice and size-assortative pairing in a jumping spider, Phidippus clarus

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2006.10.017Get rights and content

Male choice is receiving greater attention from biologists, but remains understudied compared to investigations of female choice. I studied male choice and its potential role in size-assortative pairing in the jumping spider Phidippus clarus. Adult males cohabit with and guard immature females shortly before they mature. During this period, I monitored the sex ratio and maturation rate of females in the field, because these parameters can influence conditions favouring male choice. The adult sex ratio was initially male biased and became female biased following a relatively synchronous female maturation period. I collected male–female pairs from the field and found that they were size-assortatively paired for tibia length. I then tested whether males could discriminate between females by size, using tibia length as a measure of size. Both small and large males preferred to pair with large females that matured sooner compared with small females that matured later. Males also discriminated between females when exposed only to female silken nests, suggesting that cues associated with silk convey information about maturation and tibia length, two characters that were highly inversely correlated. Finally, large males were more likely to defeat small males in male–male contests, and as the size disparity between contestants increased, the likelihood that the larger individual would win also increased. A male preference for larger females combined with a large male advantage in male–male contests is likely to strongly influence size-assortative pairing. Species that are known to mate or pair assortatively may be valuable for studies of male choice.

Section snippets

Study Sites

All field work was conducted from 2001 to 2004 on or near the campus of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, U.S.A., in old fields that contained a variety of grasses, shrubs and flowering plants, predominantly milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, goldenrod, Solidago spp., sweet clover, Melilotus spp., and asters, Aster spp. In 2005, male–male contests were staged at the Ecology Research Center of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, U.S.A.

Methods

Mating systems are influenced largely by factors such as sex

Discussion

Evidence from both field and laboratory studies suggests that male mate choice is important in the jumping spider P. clarus, a species with partial sex-role reversal. In the field, I documented a dramatic swing from a male-biased to a female-biased adult sex ratio in only a few days. This situation sets the stage for sexual selection: at the start of the season, males have the opportunity to be choosy, because penultimate females, but not adult females, are common. Males should also be

Acknowledgments

I thank Christa Skow and Kate McHugh for field assistance. Christa Skow, Jeremy Houser and Liv Baker provided helpful advice during the development of this project. Ben Normark, Jeff Podos, Ron Prokopy and Paul Sievert offered helpful suggestions on all aspects of this project and manuscript. Ann Rypstra, Jen Riem, Jason Schmidt, George Uetz, Shawn Wilder, Kerri Wrinn and two anonymous referees provided helpful comments on the manuscript. Finally, I am deeply indebted to Elizabeth Jakob for the

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