%0 Journal Article
%T Weighing costs and benefits of mating in bushcrickets (Insecta: Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae), with an emphasis on nuptial gifts, protandry and mate density
%A Gerlind U C Lehmann
%J Frontiers in Zoology
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1742-9994-9-19
%X Sexual selection is a major force driving evolution, based on variation in reproductive success among individuals of differing phenotypes [1]. Males and females often differ profoundly in selected traits and sex differences in mating competition are a notable feature, usually attributed to differences in parental investment. There are competing demands on a parent between how much it invests improving their current offspring¡¯s chance of survival (and hence reproduction) and how much it should invest in additional matings to create more offspring [2]. The investment pattern biases the ratio of sexually receptive females to males (the operational sex ratio, [3], generating intense competition between members of the more abundant mate-ready sex, usually males [4-6]. This creates opportunities of members of both sexes to adjust their mating decisions and investment in response to the decisions of other members of the guild, the game theoretic approach [7-9]. Sexual selection is also influenced by ecological factors [1,10,11], with environmental-dependent heterogeneity inducing spatial and temporal variation in sexual selection. Therefore including ecological conditions into the research about sexual selection might be able to resolve conflicting results obtained from studies of sexual traits [12]. Selection is a complex process involving many life history choices, such as the quantity of energy reserves to allocate to reproduction [13]. Where the reproductive capacity of an investing individual relies on internal energy reserves, the reproductive effort is limited by the amount of their reserves. Under such restricted conditions, individuals have to allocate resources to somatic or reproductive functions. These trade-offs have been described by the ¡°Y¡± model of resource allocation [14]. The core idea of this model is that the differential allocation of limited internal resources has a central role in the cost of reproduction and other life-history trade-offs [15-17]. Th
%K Tettigoniidae
%K Bushcrickets
%K Katydids
%K Sexual selection
%K Female choice
%K Economics of mating
%K Different allocation hypothesis
%K Mating decisions
%K Spermatophores
%K Acoustic communication
%U http://www.frontiersinzoology.com/content/9/1/19