Not what it looks like: mate-searching behaviour, mate preferences and clutch production in wandering and territory-holding female fiddler crabs
Date
2016
Authors
Peso, Marianne
Curran, Elesha
Backwell, Patricia
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Royal Society Publishing
Abstract
Risks inherent in mate-searching have led to the assumption that females moving sequentially through populations of courting males are sexually receptive, but this may not be true. We examined two types of fiddler crab females: wanderers moving through the population of courting males and residents that were occupying and defending their own territories. Sometimes residents leave territories to look for new burrows and we simulated this by displacing wanderers and residents and observing their behaviour while wandering. We predicted that the displaced wanderers would exhibit more mate-searching behaviours than resident females. However, wandering and resident females behaved nearly identically, displaying mate-searching behaviours and demonstrating matching mate preferences. Also, males behaved the same way towards both female types and similar proportions of wanderers and residents stayed in a male's burrow to mate. But more wanderers than residents produced egg clutches when choosing a burrow containing a male, suggesting females should be categorized as receptive and non-receptive. Visiting and rejecting several males is not the defining feature of female mate choice. Moving across the mudflat by approaching and leaving a succession of burrows (mostly occupied by males) is an adaptive anti-predator behaviour that is useful in the contexts of mate-searching and territory-searching.
Description
Keywords
Citation
Collections
Source
Royal Society Open Science
Type
Journal article
Book Title
Entity type
Access Statement
Open Access
License Rights
Restricted until
Downloads
File
Description