title: The repeatability of mating failure in a polyandrous bug.
abstract: Mating failure, characterized by the lack of production of offspring following copulation, is relatively common across taxa yet is little understood. It is unclear whether mating failures are stochastic occurrences between incompatible mating partners or represent a persistent, meaningful phenotype on the part of one or other sex. Here we test this in the seed bug Lygaeus simulans, by sequentially mating families of males with randomly allocated unrelated females and calculating the repeatability of mating outcome for each individual male and family. Mating outcome is significantly repeatable within individual males but not across full-sib brothers. We conclude that mating failure represents a consistent male-associated phenotype with low heritability in this species, affected by as yet undetermined environmental influences on males.
authors.affiliation: School of Biology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9TH, UK.
authors.forename: E V Ginny
authors.initials: EV
authors.lastname: Greenway
authors.affiliation: School of Biology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9TH, UK.
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Shuker
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003307:Copulation; D005260:Female; D006430:Hemiptera / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal
keywords: insect reproduction; mating failure; polyandry; sexual selection