Remote copulation: male adaptation to female cannibalism

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  • Daiqin Li
    Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 14 Science Drive 4, Singapore 117543, Republic of Singapore
  • Joelyn Oh
    Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 14 Science Drive 4, Singapore 117543, Republic of Singapore
  • Simona Kralj-Fišer
    Institute of Biology, Scientific Research Centre, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia
  • Matjaž Kuntner
    College of Life Sciences, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, Hubei, China

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Description

<jats:p> Sexual cannibalism by females and associated male behaviours may be driven by sexual conflict. One such male behaviour is the eunuch phenomenon in spiders, caused by total genital emasculation, which is a seemingly maladaptive behaviour. Here, we provide the first empirical testing of an adaptive hypothesis to explain this behaviour, the remote copulation, in a highly sexually cannibalistic orb-web spider <jats:italic>Nephilengys malabarensis</jats:italic> . We demonstrate that sperm transfer continues from the severed male organ into female genitals after the male has been detached from copula. Remote copulation increases the total amount of sperm transferred, and thus probably enhances paternity. We conclude that the mechanism may have evolved in response to sexual cannibalism and female-controlled short copulation duration. </jats:p>

Journal

  • Biology Letters

    Biology Letters 8 (4), 512-515, 2012-02

    The Royal Society

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