Sato Yukie, Staudacher Heike, Sabelis Maurice W
Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, P.O. Box 94240, 1090 GE, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Sugadaira Montane Research Center, University of Tsukuba, Ueda, Nagano, 386-2204, Japan.
Exp Appl Acarol. 2016 Jan;68(1):21-31. doi: 10.1007/s10493-015-9985-1. Epub 2015 Nov 3.
In some species, males readily show courtship behaviour towards heterospecific females and even prefer them to females of their own species. This behaviour is generally explained by indiscriminate mating to acquire more mates, but may partly be explained by male mate preference mechanisms that have developed to choose among conspecific females, as male preference for larger females causes mating with larger heterospecific females. Recently, we found that males of the red spider mite, Tetranychus evansi collected from Spain (invasive population), prefer to mate with females of the two-spotted spider mite, T. urticae rather than with conspecific females. In spider mites, mate preference for non-kin individuals has been observed. Here, we investigated if T. evansi males collected from the area of its origin (Brazil) also show preference for heterospecific females. Secondly, we investigated if mate preference of T. evansi males for heterospecific females is affected by their relatedness to conspecific females which are offered together with heterospecific females. We found that mate preference for heterospecific females exists in Brazilian T. evansi, suggesting that the preference for heterospecific females is not a lack of evolved premating isolation with an allopatric species. We found that T. evansi males showed lower propensity to mate with heterospecific females when alternative females were non-kin in the two iso-female lines collected from Brazil. However, the effect of relatedness on male mate preference was not significant. We discuss alternative hypotheses explaining why T. evansi males prefer to mate with T. urticae females.
在某些物种中，雄性会轻易地对异种雌性表现出求偶行为，甚至比起自己同种的雌性，它们更喜欢异种雌性。这种行为通常被解释为不加区分地交配以获得更多配偶，但部分原因可能是雄性为了在同种雌性中进行选择而发展出的配偶偏好机制，因为雄性对较大雌性的偏好导致它们与较大的异种雌性交配。最近，我们发现从西班牙采集的红蜘蛛螨（Tetranychus evansi，入侵种群）雄性更喜欢与二斑叶螨（T. urticae）的雌性交配，而不是与同种雌性交配。在叶螨中，已经观察到对非亲属个体的配偶偏好。在此，我们研究了从其原生地（巴西）采集的埃氏叶螨雄性是否也对异种雌性表现出偏好。其次，我们研究了埃氏叶螨雄性对异种雌性的配偶偏好是否会受到与异种雌性一起提供的同种雌性的亲缘关系的影响。我们发现巴西的埃氏叶螨存在对异种雌性的配偶偏好，这表明对异种雌性的偏好并非是与异域物种缺乏进化的交配前隔离。我们发现，在从巴西采集的两个同雌系中，当替代雌性为非亲属时，埃氏叶螨雄性与异种雌性交配的倾向较低。然而，亲缘关系对雄性配偶偏好的影响并不显著。我们讨论了解释埃氏叶螨雄性为何更喜欢与二斑叶螨雌性交配的其他假说。
