title: A mortality cost of virginity at older ages in female Mediterranean fruit flies.
abstract: Mortality rates were measured over the lifetime of 65,000 female Mediterranean fruit flies, Ceratitis capitata, maintained in either all-female (virgin) cages or cages with equal initial numbers of males, to determine the effect of sexual activity and mating on the mortality trajectory of females at older ages. Although a greater fraction of females maintained in all-female (virgin) cages survived to older ages, the life expectancy of the surviving virgins was less than the life expectancy of surviving non-virgins at older ages. This was due to a mortality crossover where virgin flies experience lower mortality than mated flies from eclosion to Day 20 but higher mortality thereafter. These results suggest that there are two consequences of mating--a short-term mortality increase (cost) and a longer term mortality decrease (benefit).
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA. jrcarey@ucdavis.edu
authors.forename: James R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Carey
authors.forename: Pablo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Liedo
authors.forename: Lawrence
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Harshman
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Hans-Georg
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Partridge
authors.forename: Jane-Ling
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D004175:Diptera / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D008017:Life Expectancy; D008297:Male; D009026:Mortality; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal