title: Male adaptations to minimize sexual cannibalism during reproduction in the funnel-web spider Hololena curta.
abstract: Males of many spider species risk being attacked and cannibalized while searching for, courting, and mating with conspecific females. However, there are exceptions. We show that the funnel-web spider, Hololena curta, has 3 adaptations that minimize risk to males during courtship and mating, and enhance reproductive success. First, males detected chemical or tactile signals associated with webs of virgin females, and differentiated them from webs of mated females, enabling males to increase encounter rates with virgin females and avoid aggressive mated females. Second, males produced stereotyped vibrational signals during courting which induced female quiescence and suppressed female aggression. Third, when touched by males, sexually receptive females entered a cataleptic state, allowing males to safely approach and copulate. Because males can mate multiple times and the sex ratio in natural populations of H. curta is female biased, overall reproductive output is likely increased by males of this species avoiding sexual cannibalism.
authors.affiliation: College of Life Sciences, Jinggangshan University, Ji'an, Jiangxi, 343009, China.|Department of Entomology, University of California, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA.
authors.forename: Yong-Hong
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, National Institute of Biology, Ljubljana, SI-1000, Slovenia.
authors.forename: Alenka
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zunic-Kosi
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, University of California, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA.|Anhui Provincial Key Laboratory of Microbial Control, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, Anhui, 230036, China.
authors.forename: Long-Wa
authors.initials: LW
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, University of California, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA.
authors.forename: Thomas R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Prentice
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, University of California, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA.
authors.forename: J Steven
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: McElfresh
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, University of California, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA.
authors.forename: Satya P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Chinta
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, University of California, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA.
authors.forename: Yun-Fan
authors.initials: YF
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, University of California, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA.
authors.forename: Jocelyn G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Millar
mesh_terms: D000220:Adaptation, Biological; D000819:Animal Communication; D000818:Animals; D002190:Cannibalism; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D012744:Sex Ratio; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal; D013112:Spiders; D014732:Vibration
keywords: cataleptic state; chemical signal; sex ratio; sexual cannibalism; vibrational signal