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Avoidance of reproductive interference causes resource partitioning in bean beetle females

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Population Ecology

Abstract

Reproductive interference is any interspecific sexual interaction that adversely affects female fitness through indiscriminate reproductive activities. It can be a driving force of resource partitioning in conjunction with resource competition. We previously showed that the bean beetle Callosobruchus maculatus is superior in larval resource competition, but vulnerable in reproductive interference, compared with its congener C. chinensis. We hypothesized that these two species might use two resources differently if one of the resources modified the intensity of reproductive interference or resource competition. We observed that C. maculatus females often enter gaps between beans to avoid mating attempts of heterospecific males, and hypothesized that removing bean gaps would strengthen reproductive interference. Therefore, we provided normal beans with gaps and split beans without gaps to females of the two species housed with conspecific or heterospecific males or no males and compared the number of eggs on each bean type among treatments. Callosobruchus maculatus females housed with heterospecific males were more likely to oviposit on normal beans than C. chinensis females. As a result, more C. chinensis adults hatched from split beans and more C. maculatus hatched from normal beans when females and males of both species were housed together. Thus, oviposition resource partitioning resulted from the combination of female avoidance of reproductive interference and resource competition.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Noriyuki Suzuki, Takayoshi Nishida, and Tetsuro Yoshikawa for valuable comments on our previous drafts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecological Environment Research Office, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8657, Japan

    Shigeki Kishi

  2. Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University, Otsu, Shiga, Japan

    Yoshitaka Tsubaki

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  1. Shigeki Kishi
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  2. Yoshitaka Tsubaki
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Correspondence to Shigeki Kishi.

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Kishi, S., Tsubaki, Y. Avoidance of reproductive interference causes resource partitioning in bean beetle females. Popul Ecol 56, 73–80 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10144-013-0390-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10144-013-0390-5

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