Larval developmental temperature and ambient temperature affect copulation duration in a seed beetle

Vasudeva, R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3831-0384, Deeming, D. C. and Eady, P. E. (2018) Larval developmental temperature and ambient temperature affect copulation duration in a seed beetle. Behaviour, 155 (1). pp. 69-82. ISSN 0005-7959

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Abstract

The effects of temperature on cellular, systemic and whole-organism processes can be short-term, acting within seconds or minutes of a temperature change, or long-term, acting across ontogenetic stages to affect an organism’s morphology, physiology and behavioural phenotype. Here we examine the effect of larval development temperature on adult copulatory behaviour in the bruchid beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus. As predicted by temperature’s kinetic effects, copulation duration was longest at the lowest ambient temperature. However, where ambient temperature was fixed and developmental temperature experimentally varied, males reared at the highest temperature were least likely to engage in copulation, whilst those reared at the lowest temperature copulated for longer. Previous research has shown males reared at cooler temperatures inseminate fewer sperm. Thus, in this species longer copulations are associated with reduced sperm transfer. We argue that knowledge of preceding ontogenetic conditions will help to elucidate the causes of variation in copulatory behaviour.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: mating behaviour,callosobruchus maculatus,ectotherms,developmental plasticity,sperm transfer,thermal heterogeneity
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences
Related URLs:
Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 20 Feb 2018 16:30
Last Modified: 22 Oct 2022 03:35
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/66319
DOI: 10.1163/1568539X-00003479

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