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Female Age Determines Remating Behavior in Wild Mexican Fruit Flies

Abraham et al.: Age Effects on Female Remating in A. ludens

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Abstract

Male and female age are important factors that can influence mating and remating behavior. Females can discriminate against or prefer older males, but there have been relatively fewer studies on how female and male age influence female remating. Here we showed in wild flies of the Mexican fruit fly Anastrepha ludens (Loew), that when females were given a choice between males of different ages, younger females preferred to mate with younger males over older males, while older females were less selective. Also, when given a choice between males of different ages, older females had longer copulation durations than younger females. On the other hand, older males and females had lower mating success, compared with young and middle-aged flies under no choice conditions. However, middle-aged females mated faster compared to young females and young males mated faster compared to middle-aged males. Male age did not influence female remating, while female age strongly determined female remating, with no females remating when they were old. It is unclear if female receptivity mechanisms are switched off at older ages, or if females are reluctant to remate due to possible costs of mating. We discuss our results in terms of how male and female age can influence mating decisions.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank two anonymous referees for comments that improved the manuscript. We thank Evaristo Calihua Chipahua, Carlos Carmona and Nicolás Núñez-Beverido for colony maintenance and technical assistance with the experiments. Funding was provided by CONACyT Mexico grant number Ciencia Básica 179741 awarded to DPS. We thank CONACyT for a Master’s scholarship for YCN and CONICET Argentina for a postdoctoral scholarship for SA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratorio de Investigaciones Ecoetológicas de Moscas de la Fruta y sus Enemigos Naturales (LIEMEN), PROIMI-Biotecnología, CONICET, Avenida Belgrano y Pasaje Caceros s/n, 4000, San Miguel de Tucumán, Tucumán, Argentina

    Solana Abraham

  2. Facultad de Ciencias Agrícolas, Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, Veracruz, México

    Yair Contreras-Navarro

  3. INBIOTECA, Universidad Veracruzana, Av. de las Culturas Veracruzanas 101, Col. E. Zapata, Cp. 91090, Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico

    Diana Pérez-Staples

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  1. Solana Abraham
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Correspondence to Solana Abraham.

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Abraham, S., Contreras-Navarro, Y. & Pérez-Staples, D. Female Age Determines Remating Behavior in Wild Mexican Fruit Flies. J Insect Behav 29, 340–354 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10905-016-9562-4

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