Golobinek Rok, Gregorič Matjaž, Kralj-Fišer Simona
Jovan Hadži Institute of Biology, Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Novi trg 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Biology (Basel). 2021 Mar 3;10(3):189. doi: 10.3390/biology10030189.
Theory suggests that consistent individual variation in behavior relates to fitness, but few studies have empirically examined the role of personalities in mate choice, male-male competition and reproductive success. We observed the Mediterranean black widow, , in the individual and mating context, to test how body size measures and two functionally important aggressive behaviors, i.e., male aggression towards rivals and female voracity towards prey, affect mating behaviors, mating success and sexual cannibalism. We specifically selected voracity towards prey in females to test the "aggressive spillover hypothesis", suggesting that more voracious females are more sexually cannibalistic. Both females and males exhibit consistent individual differences in the examined aggressive behaviors. While larger males win contests more often and achieve more copulations, neither male nor female size measures correlate to aggression. Female voracity does not correlate with aggression towards mates and sexual cannibalism, rejecting the "spillover hypothesis". However, occurrence of sexual cannibalism positively relates to longer insertion duration. Furthermore, the smaller the ratio between male and female body length the more likely a female attacked and cannibalized a mate. We show that individual variation in aggression levels plays no direct role in the mating behavior of the Mediterranean black widow. Instead, body size affects male mating success and occurrences of sexual cannibalism in females.
理论表明，行为上持续的个体差异与适应性相关，但很少有研究实证检验个性在配偶选择、雄性间竞争和繁殖成功中的作用。我们在个体和交配情境中观察了地中海黑寡妇，以测试体型测量以及两种功能上重要的攻击性行为，即雄性对竞争对手的攻击和雌性对猎物的贪婪程度，如何影响交配行为、交配成功率和性食同类现象。我们特别选择了雌性对猎物的贪婪程度来检验“攻击溢出假说”，该假说认为更贪婪的雌性更具性食同类倾向。在被研究的攻击性行为中，雌性和雄性都表现出持续的个体差异。虽然体型较大的雄性更常赢得争斗并获得更多交配机会，但雄性和雌性的体型测量都与攻击性无关。雌性的贪婪程度与对配偶的攻击性和性食同类现象无关，这否定了“溢出假说”。然而，性食同类现象的发生与更长的插入持续时间呈正相关。此外，雄雌体长比例越小，雌性攻击和食同类配偶的可能性就越大。我们表明，攻击水平上的个体差异在地中海黑寡妇的交配行为中没有直接作用。相反，体型影响雄性的交配成功率和雌性性食同类现象的发生情况。
