Are attractive male crickets better able to pay the costs of an immune challenge?

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1 Département des sciences biologiques, Univeristé du Quebéc à Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
2 Science and Education Division, Pacific Science Center, Seattle, Washington, United States
3 Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, United States
4 Department of Pathobiological Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, United States
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.1424v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Animal Behavior, Evolutionary Studies, Zoology
Keywords
immune challenge, life history, mate choice, sexual selection, sexual attractiveness, terminal investment, ecoimmunology, trade-off, sexual signaling
Copyright
© 2015 Kelly et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Kelly CD, Telemeco M, Toth AL, Bartholomay LC. 2015. Are attractive male crickets better able to pay the costs of an immune challenge? PeerJ PrePrints 3:e1424v1

Abstract

Reproduction and immunity are fitness-related traits that trade-off with each other. Parasite-mediated theories of sexual selection suggest, however, that higher-quality males should suffer smaller costs to reproduction-related traits and behaviours (e.g. sexual display) from an immune challenge because these males possess more resources with which to deal with the challenge. We used Gryllus texensis field crickets to test the prediction that attractive males should better maintain the performance of a fitness-related traits (e.g. calling effort) in the face of an immune challenge compared with unattractive males. We found no support for our original predictions. However, that immune activation causes attractive males to significantly increase their calling effort compared with unattractive males suggests that these males might terminally invest in order to compensate for decreased future reproduction.

Author Comment

This is a submission to PeerJ for review.

Supplemental Information

Calling data for sexually attractive and unattractive males that were injected with either saline of LPS

Raw data of calling effort for sexually attractive and unattractive males that were injected with either saline of LPS.

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.1424v1/supp-1

Phenotypic data for sexually attractiven and unattractive males that were injected with either saline of LPS

Raw data of phenotypic traits for sexually attractive and unattractive males that were injected with either saline of LPS.

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.1424v1/supp-2