Elsevier

Animal Behaviour

Volume 64, Issue 3, September 2002, Pages 397-406
Animal Behaviour

Regular Articles
Quantitative genetics of oviposition behaviour and interactions among oviposition traits in the sand cricket

https://doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2002.3084Get rights and content

Abstract

We performed a quantitative genetic study of oviposition behaviours and oviposition traits in the sand cricket Gryllus firmus. Egg survival in crickets depends on the depth at which they are inserted into the soil with the ovipositor. We examined whether egg depth depends on ovipositor length alone, or on both morphological and behavioural traits associated with oviposition. Heritability estimates were high (h2 >0.5) for ovipositor length and small (h2=0.2) for oviposition behaviours. Negative genetic correlations between ovipositor length and some behavioural traits (digging depth and the behavioural component of egg depth) indicated compensation between oviposition traits on egg depth. Because of behavioural compensation, females with different ovipositor lengths subject to stabilizing selection on egg depth could have equal fitnesses. Females laid their eggs deeper, and their eggs were marginally more evenly distributed in dry than in wet sand. This suggests adaptive phenotypic plasticity in laying behaviour, but may also result from physical constraints of the substrate on the insertion of the ovipositor. The absence of significant between-family variation in oviposition traits in response to sand moisture indicates low evolutionary potential for phenotypic plasticity in oviposition traits according to soil moisture. In highly unpredictable environments, females could spread the risk of desiccation by laying eggs at different depths independently of environmental conditions (bet hedging). Our results show significant additive genetic influences on the ability of a female to spread risks as measured by genetic variation in egg distribution, suggesting that a bet-hedging strategy of egg laying has the potential to evolve in this population. Copyright 2002 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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  • Cited by (0)

    f1

    Correspondence and present address: D. Réale, Department of Biology, McGill University, 1205 Dr Penfield Avenue, Montréal, PQ H3A 1B1, Canada (email: [email protected]).

    f2

    D. A. Roff is now at the Department of Biology, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, U.S.A.

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