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1 August 2014 Mating Opportunities in Sangalopsis veliterna Females: Costs and Benefits
Linda C. Hernández Duran, Gonzalo E. Fajardo Medina, Luz S. Fuentes Quintero
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Abstract

In nature, females of several animal taxa exhibit considerable variation in their mating system, and this variation involves different balances of costs (e.g., energetic, reproductive) and benefits (e.g., increased net reproductive rate of the female, increased longevity). Many studies have focused on discovering the potential advantages and disadvantages that females could have when increasing their mating rate and the possible evolutionary consequences that may result. Butterflies and moths are an ideal study system because it is easy to determine and to manipulate experimentally their mating frequency. In this study, the effect of continuous availability of different numbers of males (1, 2, 4, 8) on female mating rate and fitness components was estimated by comparing the number of spermatophores in the corpus bursa (an estimate of the number of copulations, but not of the number males involved in these copulations), female longevity, lifetime number of laid eggs (fecundity), and proportion of hatching eggs (fertility) in the moth Sangalopsis veliterna Druce (Lepidoptera: Geometridae). The results showed that there were no significant differences in either fertility or fecundity when treatments were compared, but longevity and in some cases fecundity increased when females had several matings.

This is an open access paper. We use the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license that permits unrestricted use, provided that the paper is properly attributed.
Linda C. Hernández Duran, Gonzalo E. Fajardo Medina, and Luz S. Fuentes Quintero "Mating Opportunities in Sangalopsis veliterna Females: Costs and Benefits," Journal of Insect Science 14(112), 1-9, (1 August 2014). https://doi.org/10.1673/031.014.112
Received: 25 September 2012; Accepted: 1 March 2013; Published: 1 August 2014
KEYWORDS
fecundity
fertility
fitness
longevity
mating rate
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