ArticleBiology letters2016
Copulation with immature females increases male fitness in cannibalistic widow spiders.
Article in Biology letters, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 48 citations in OpenAlex.
- Behavioural ecology in the twenty-first century.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Review
- Alternative mating tactics in brown widow spiders: mating with or without male self-sacrifice does not affect the copulatory mechanism.Frontiers in zoology · 2025Article
- Does female control and male mating system predict courtship investment and mating outcomes? A comparative study in five widow spider species (genus Latrodectus) tested under similar laboratory conditions.BMC ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Pre-copulatory choices drive post-copulatory decisions: mechanisms of female control shift across different life stages.BMC ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Ultimate sacrifice or opportunistic foraging?: The selective forces behind sexual cannibalism: The selective forces behind sexual cannibalism.EMBO reports · 2023Article
- Male opportunistic mating increases with intensity of female sexual cannibalism in 3 web-building spiders.Current zoology · 2022Article
- Modest sexual size dimorphism and allometric growth: a study based on growth and gonad development in the wolf spider Pardosa pseudoannulata (Araneae: Lycosidae).Biology open · 2021Article
- Juvenile Experience with Male Cues Triggers Cryptic Choice Mechanisms in Adult Female Redback Spiders.Insects · 2021Article
- Functional morphology of immature mating in a widow spider.Frontiers in zoology · 2021Article
- Widow spiders in the New World: a review onThe journal of venomous animals and toxins including tropical diseases · 2021Article
- Male coercion and female injury in a sexually cannibalistic mantis.Biology letters · 2021Article
- Sex differences in spiders: from phenotype to genomics.Development genes and evolution · 2020Review
- Immature mating as a tactic of polygynous male western widow spiders.Die Naturwissenschaften · 2020Article
- Mate availability does not influence mating strategies in males of the sexually cannibalistic spiderPeerJ · 2018Article
- Neutral fitness outcomes contradict inferences of sexual 'coercion' derived from male's damaging mating tactic in a widow spider.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Copulation with immature females increases male fitness in cannibalistic widow spiders.Biology letters · 2016Article
- Risky business: males choose more receptive adults over safer subadults in a cannibalistic spider.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Copulatory cannibalism of male 'widow' spiders (genus Latrodectus) is a model example of the extreme effects of sexual selection, particularly in L. hasselti and L. geometricus where males typically facilitate cannibalism by females and mate only once. We show that these males can increase their reproductive success by copulating with final-instar, immature females after piercing the female's exoskeleton to access her newly developed sperm storage organs. Females retain sperm through their final moult and have similar fecundity to adult-mated females. This is an adaptive male tactic because immature mating increases insemination success relative to adult mating (which predicts higher paternity) and moreover, rarely ends in cannibalism, so males can mate again. Although successful only during a brief period before the female's final moult, males may employ this tactic when they associate with final-instar females in nature. Consistent with this, one-third of L. hasselti females collected as immatures in nature were already mated. Immature mating alters sexual selection on these otherwise monogynous males, and may explain male traits allowing facultative polygyny in Latrodectus Since male cohabitation with immature females is common among invertebrates, immature mating may be a widespread, previously unrecognized mating tactic, particularly when unmated females are of high reproductive value.
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