Abstract
Female St Andrew’s Cross spiders control copulation duration by timing sexual cannibalism and may thereby control paternity if cannibalism affects sperm transfer. We have investigated the effect of copulation duration on sperm transfer and documented sperm storage patterns when we experimentally reduced the ability of females to attack and cannibalise the male. Virgin males and females were paired and randomly allocated either to a control treatment, where females were allowed to attack and cannibalise the male during copulation, or to an experimental treatment, where females were unable to cannibalise the male. The latter was achieved by placing a paintbrush against her chelicerae during copulation. Our experimental manipulation did not affect copulation duration or sperm storage. However, the number of sperm stored by the female increased with copulation duration only if the male was cannibalised, suggesting that cannibalism increases relative paternity not only through prolonged copulation duration following a fair raffle model but also through the cannibalism act itself. Future studies should explore whether cannibalised males ejaculate more sperm or whether females selectively store the sperm of cannibalised males.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Garine Assadourian for help with the spider collection and maintenance, the Australian Research Council (DP0662873 to MEH) for financial support and two anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions. SP was supported by the grant no. MSM0021622416 provided by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic.
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Herberstein, M.E., Schneider, J.M., Harmer, A.M.T. et al. Sperm storage and copulation duration in a sexually cannibalistic spider. J Ethol 29, 9–15 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10164-010-0213-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10164-010-0213-5