Dominance, reproductive behaviours and female mate choice in sterilised versus non-sterilised invasive male crayfish
Autor: | Demetra Andreou, J. Robert Britton, Matt Bentley, Nicky Green, Paul Stebbing |
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Rok vydání: | 2020 |
Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
education.field_of_study Reproductive success 010604 marine biology & hydrobiology Population Zoology Aquatic Science Biology Female promiscuity Crayfish biology.organism_classification 010603 evolutionary biology 01 natural sciences Signal crayfish Intraspecific competition Mate choice Juvenile education Ecology Evolution Behavior and Systematics |
Zdroj: | Aquatic Ecology. 54:813-822 |
ISSN: | 1573-5125 1386-2588 |
DOI: | 10.1007/s10452-020-09779-5 |
Popis: | Many methods of controlling invasive crayfishes have limited success because they fail to target all life stages of the population, notably by capturing only large adults that can result in increased juvenile recruitment by removing intraspecific predation. An alternative approach uses the sterile male release technique that involves the mass release of sterile males into the environment, which then mate with fertile females, resulting in unfertilised eggs and, ultimately, reduced juvenile recruitment. This does, however, rely on the sterilised males exhibiting behaviours similar to non-sterilised (entire) males and remaining attractive to females during mate choice. Post-copulatory male guarding behaviour and female promiscuity might also be affected by male sterilisation. To test for the presence of normal reproductive behaviours in sterilised male American signal crayfish Pacifastacus leniusculus, a two-stage experiment examined how sterilisation affects female mate choice and promiscuity, male hierarchical status (relative dominance) and post-copulation guarding. Sterilised males showed similar reproductive behaviours to entire males and remained as attractive to females, with no differences in relative dominance. Post-copulation, guarding behaviours were also unaffected. Females did not display promiscuous behaviour and this was unaffected by whether males were entire or sterilised. The results demonstrated that sterilised males were equally as capable as entire males of achieving dominance and winning mates. In combination, these findings suggest that male sterilisation could be an effective control technique to help reduce juvenile recruitment in wild P. leniusculus populations by reducing reproductive success. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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