Courtship pheromone production and body size as correlates of larval diet in males of the arctiid moth,Utetheisa ornatrix

1990 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 543-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. E. Conner ◽  
B. Roach ◽  
E. Benedict ◽  
J. Meinwald ◽  
T. Eisner
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Larval Diet ◽  
Pheromone Production ◽  
Utetheisa Ornatrix ◽  
Courtship Pheromone ◽  
Arctiid Moth

scholarly journals Pheromone production, male abundance, body size, and the evolution of elaborate antennae in moths

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 227-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew R.E. Symonds ◽  
Tamara L. Johnson ◽  
Mark A. Elgar
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Pheromone Production

Female Promiscuity Does Not Lead to Increased Fertility or Fecundity in an Arctiid Moth (Utetheisa ornatrix)

2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 213-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander L. Bezzerides ◽  
Vikram K. Iyengar ◽  
Thomas Eisner
Keyword(s):  
Utetheisa Ornatrix ◽  
Arctiid Moth ◽  
Female Promiscuity

scholarly journals Toward an understanding of the chemical ecology of alternative reproductive tactics in the bulb mite (Rhizoglyphus robini)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam N. Zeeman ◽  
Isabel M. Smallegange ◽  
Emily Burdfield Steel ◽  
Astrid T. Groot ◽  
Kathryn A. Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Chemical Ecology ◽  
Alternative Reproductive Tactics ◽  
Relative Fitness ◽  
Pheromone Production ◽  
Reproductive Tactics ◽  
Female Mimicry ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Nutritional Environment ◽  
Bulb Mite

Abstract BackgroundUnder strong sexual selection, certain species evolve distinct intrasexual, alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs). In many cases, ARTs can be viewed as environmentally-cued threshold traits, such that ARTs coexist if their relative fitness alternates over the environmental cue gradient. Surprisingly, the chemical ecology of ARTs has been underexplored in this context. To our knowledge, no prior study has directly quantified pheromone production for ARTs in a male-polymorphic species. Here, we used the bulb mite—in which males are either armed fighters that kill conspecifics, or unarmed scramblers—as a model system to gain insight into the role of pheromones in the evolutionary maintenance of ARTs. Given that scramblers forgo investment into weaponry, we tested whether scramblers produce higher pheromone quantities than fighters, which would improve the fitness of the scrambler phenotype, e.g. through female mimicry to avoid aggression from competitors. To this end, we sampled mites from a rich and a poor nutritional environment and quantified their production of the female sex pheromone α-acaridial through gas chromatography analysis. ResultsWe found a positive relationship between pheromone production and body size, but males exhibited a steeper slope in pheromone production with increasing size than females. Females exhibited a higher average pheromone production than males. We found no significant difference in slope of pheromone production over body size between fighters and scramblers. However, scramblers reached larger body sizes and higher pheromone production than fighters, providing some evidence for a potential female mimic strategy adopted by large scramblers. Pheromone production was significantly higher in mites from the rich nutritional environment than the poor environment. ConclusionFurther elucidation of pheromone functionality in bulb mites, and additional inter- and intrasexual comparisons of pheromone profiles are needed to determine if the observed intersexual and intrasexual differences in pheromone production are adaptive, if they are a by-product of allometric scaling, or diet-mediated pheromone production under weak selection. We argue chemical ecology offers a novel perspective for research on ARTs and other complex life-history traits.

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