Garcia Diaz Virginia, Aisenberg Anita, Peretti Alfredo V
Laboratorio de Biología Reproductiva y Evolución, Cátedra de Diversidad Animal I, F.C.E.F.N., Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Córdoba 5000, Argentina.
Laboratorio de Etología, Ecología y Evolución, Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas Clemente Estable, Montevideo 11600, Uruguay.
Behav Processes. 2015 Jul;116:62-8. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2015.05.005. Epub 2015 May 8.
Traditional studies on sexual communication have focused on the exchange of signals during courtship. However, communication between the sexes can also occur during or after copulation. Allocosa brasiliensis is a wolf spider that shows a reversal in typical sex roles and of the usual sexual size dimorphism expected for spiders. Females are smaller than males and they are the roving sex that initiates courtship. Occasional previous observations suggested that females performed body shaking behaviors during copulation. Our objective was to analyze if female body shaking is associated with male copulatory behavior in A. brasiliensis, and determine if this female behavior has a communicatory function in this species. For that purpose, we performed fine-scaled analysis of fifteen copulations under laboratory conditions. We video-recorded all the trials and looked for associations between female and male copulatory behaviors. The significant difference between the time before and after female shaking, in favor of the subsequent ejaculation is analyzed. We discuss if shaking could be acting as a signal to accelerate and motivate palpal insertion and ejaculation, and/or inhibiting male cannibalistic tendencies in this species.
传统的关于性交流的研究主要集中在求偶过程中的信号交换。然而，两性之间的交流也可能发生在交配期间或之后。巴西Allocosa狼蛛表现出典型的性别角色逆转，以及与蜘蛛通常预期的性大小二态性相反的情况。雌性比雄性小，并且是主动求偶的游荡性别。之前偶尔的观察表明，雌性在交配时会进行身体抖动行为。我们的目标是分析雌性身体抖动是否与巴西Allocosa狼蛛的雄性交配行为相关，并确定这种雌性行为在该物种中是否具有交流功能。为此，我们在实验室条件下对15次交配进行了精细分析。我们对所有试验进行了录像，并寻找雌性和雄性交配行为之间的关联。分析了雌性抖动前后时间的显著差异，结果有利于随后的射精。我们讨论了抖动是否可能作为一种信号，以加速和促使触肢插入及射精，和/或抑制该物种中雄性的同类相食倾向。
