Abstract
If mating with an inferior male has high fitness costs, females may try to avoid mating with these males. Alternatively, females may accept an inferior male to ensure they have obtained at least one mate, and/or to avoid the costs of resisting these males. We hypothesized that females compensate for mating with an inferior male by remating. We tested this hypothesis by measuring remating propensity in females that had mated with an old, multiply- mated male, a 9-day-old virgin male, or a young, virgin male. Females were more likely to remate when they had mated with multiply-mated males than when they had mated with a 9-day-old or young virgin male. We discuss the observed mating behavior by females in terms of sexual selection for multiple mating.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | e0175512 |
Journal | PloS one |
Volume | 12 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 2017 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2017 Milonas et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.