Abstract
Male competition for mates and female mate choice are key mechanisms involved in sexual selection. Surprisingly, these mechanisms have often been investigated separately although they appear to interact in many species. Male–male competition for territories located at the best places or to establish dominance relationships often explain mating patterns. Such male behaviours may affect and sometimes even hinder female mate choice, as in the case of sexual coercion. While in many species females are able to exert cryptic control over paternity (i.e. a process allowing females to bias offspring production toward certain males after intromission), in other species external fertilisation prevents females from doing so. This is the case in the waterfrog hybridisation complex where the hybrid Pelophylax esculentus can only produce viable offspring by pairing with the parental species Pelophylax lessonae (hybridogenetic reproduction). We examined two potential processes that could enhance such mating combinations. Firstly, by monitoring male spatial distribution within six choruses, we showed that the proportion of P. lessonae males located at the edge (in the best position to grasp females arriving at the chorus) cannot explain the frequency of mating combinations observed. Secondly, an experimental approach emphasised a new way for anuran females to favour paternity of a particular male in a sexual coercion context. When females are forcefully paired with an incompatible male, they cannot remove the male grasped on their back by themselves. Nevertheless, by controlling the movement of the pair within the chorus, these females often change mates by enhancing male competition instead of laying eggs. In many species with externally fertilised eggs, it may be thus necessary to take into account this new possibility for females to control offspring paternity.
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Acknowledgements
The study was supported by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). We are indebted to the Fondation Vérots for allowing us to carry out this study on their estate. We are grateful to Michael Cormier and Florent Arthaud for their help in the field. We thank Sandrine Plénet for her helpful comments and suggestions on previous versions of this manuscript. We are grateful to Christina Richardson for the improvement of the English and to constructive comments of anonymous referees. This study was conducted with the approval of Préfecture de l’Ain in accordance with the current laws in France.
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Communicated by J. Christensen-Dalsgaard
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Lengagne, T., Joly, P. Paternity control for externally fertilised eggs: behavioural mechanisms in the waterfrog species complex. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 64, 1179–1186 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-010-0934-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-010-0934-z