TY  - JOUR
A1  - Lipkowski, Konrad
A1  - Steigerwald, Sophie
A1  - Schulte, Lisa Maria
A1  - Sommer-Trembo, Carolin
A1  - Jourdan, Jonas
T1  - Natural variation in social conditions affects male mate choosiness in the amphipod Gammarus roeselii
T2  - Current zoology
N2  - The extent of male mate choosiness is driven by a trade-off between various environmental factors associated with the costs of mate acquisition, quality assessment and opportunity costs. Our knowledge about natural variation in male mate choosiness across different populations of the same species, however, remains limited. In this study, we compared male mate choosiness across 10 natural populations of the freshwater amphipod Gammarus roeselii (Gervais 1835), a species with overall high male mating investments, and evaluated the relative influence of population density and sex ratio (both affecting mate availability) on male mate choosiness. We investigated amplexus establishment after separating mating pairs and presenting focal males with a novel, size-matched female from the same population. Our analysis revealed considerable effects of sex ratio and (to a lesser extent) population density on time until amplexus establishment (choosiness). Male amphipods are able to perceive variable social conditions (e.g., sex ratio) and modify their mating strategy accordingly: We found choosiness to be reduced in increasingly male-biased populations, whereas selectivity increases when sex ratio becomes female biased. With this, our study expands our limited knowledge on natural variations in male mate choosiness and illustrates the importance of sex ratio (i.e., level of competition) for male mating decisions in natural environments. Accounting for variation in sex ratios, therefore, allows envisioning a distinctive variation of choosiness in natural populations and highlights the importance of considering social background information in future behavioral studies.
KW  - amplexus
KW  - Crustacea
KW  - local adaptation
KW  - mate choice
KW  - population density
KW  - sex ratio
Y1  - 2021
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/63317
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-633178
SN  - 2396-9814
N1  - The data underlying this article is available at https://zenodo.org/record/4560491.
VL  - 68
IS  - 4
SP  - 459
EP  - 467
PB  - Oxford University Press
CY  - [Oxford]
ER  -