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Should he stay or should he go: male influence on offspring sex ratio via postcopulatory attendance

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Abstract

In species without nuptial gifts or parental care, postcopulatory attendance of females by males has generally been interpreted as males guarding against sperm competition. Guarding benefits may be concurrent with attendance (the guarding-now hypothesis), or male behavior during attendance may make the female unreceptive (the guarding in absentia hypothesis). However, in addition to guarding functions, attendance may provide the male with an opportunity to influence the female's use of sperm. In haplodiploids such as hymenopterans, doing so may be beneficial because only daughters and not sons are produced sexually and so influence male reproductive success (the sex ratio hypothesis). In the parasitoid wasp Urolepis rufipes, postcopulatory attendance involved the male remaining mounted after copulation and resuming courtship. Support for the guarding-now hypothesis was limited. A male's presence on a female did not reduce the probability, or quickness, of another male mounting, and second-mounted males frequently copulated. The guarding in absentia hypothesis was not supported. Females became unreceptive soon after mating even when copulation and postcopulatory attendance were experimentally prevented. The sex ratio hypothesis was supported. Postcopulatory attendance caused females to produce more daughters. They also produced more total offspring. Thus, a male should stay and should not go even in the absence of other males, at least when opportunities for other matings are absent as in the present study. Although most studies of offspring sex ratios have focused on maternal control, this study provides an example of apparently adaptive male influence on sex ratio.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank A. Coletta, M. Hyett, J. Niew, T. Schulmeister, and A. van Pelt for assistance with experiments; J. Cooper and W. Nichols, Jr. for assistance with colony maintenance; B. Ball for the illustration; R. King and R. Moran for feedback on presentation; and K. Floate for U. rufipes. This research was supported by Northern Illinois University's Department of Biological Sciences.

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  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, 60115, USA

    B. H. King & K. A. Kuban

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  1. B. H. King
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  2. K. A. Kuban
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Correspondence to B. H. King.

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Communicated by S. Sakaluk

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King, B.H., Kuban, K.A. Should he stay or should he go: male influence on offspring sex ratio via postcopulatory attendance. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 66, 1165–1173 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-012-1369-5

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