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Mating with a kin decreases female remating interval: a possible example of inbreeding avoidance

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Abstract

Inbreeding depression is a relative decline in fitness in offspring of related parents. The magnitude of inbreeding costs varies among taxa and may increase under stressful conditions. Inbreeding tolerance is expected to be low and selection for inbreeding avoidance intense when both sexes invest substantially in shared offspring like in nuptial gift-giving butterflies. This is especially true for increasing mating rate for inbreeding avoidance as nuptial feeding decreases net costs of mating for females. We explored implications of inbreeding in the nuptial gift-giving green-veined white butterfly, Pieris napi. Compared to outbred ones, partially inbred (F = 0.25) eggs and neonate larvae had 25% lower hatching success and 30% lower survival until adult eclosion, respectively. Inbreeding was also associated with small size. Yet, the magnitude of inbreeding depression was independent of larval conditions. A lack of assortative mating and mating durations independent of mating type suggest that neither females nor males discriminate close relatives (r = 0.5) as mates. Indicative of a postcopulatory mechanism to avoid inbreeding, female remating intervals decreased following incestuous matings. Such a plastic response may affect the level of postcopulatory sexual selection as female remating interval (time between successive matings) is necessarily negatively correlated with mating rate (matings per unit time) and mating frequency (lifetime number of matings), and precopulatory mate choice appeared insignificant. Moreover, incest-induced shift in the phenotype towards the adaptive peak may contribute to the evolution of female mating rates, although alternative explanations for polyandry besides material benefits have rarely been invoked when nuptial feeding is involved.

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Acknowledgments

We thank M. Mutanen, H. Pöykkö, and two anonymous referees for the helpful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript. This study was partly financed by the Finnish cultural foundation (grant to P.V.) and the Jenny and Antti Wihuri foundation (S.M.K.). The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. All of Finland’s guidelines and legal requirements for the use of animals in research were followed.

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  1. Department of Biology, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 3000, 90014, Oulu, Finland

    Panu Välimäki, Sami M. Kivelä & Maarit I. Mäenpää

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  1. Panu Välimäki
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  2. Sami M. Kivelä
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  3. Maarit I. Mäenpää
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Correspondence to Panu Välimäki.

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Communicated by N. Wedell

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Välimäki, P., Kivelä, S.M. & Mäenpää, M.I. Mating with a kin decreases female remating interval: a possible example of inbreeding avoidance. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 65, 2037–2047 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-011-1213-3

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