title: Geographical variation in sexual behavior and body traits in a sex role reversed wolf spider.
abstract: Mating partners need to recognize, assess each other, and exchange information through behavioral events that occur before, during, and after mating. Sexual signals, as well as life history traits, are influenced by selective pressures and environmental factors that can vary across distant geographical areas. Allocosa senex is a sand-dwelling wolf spider which constructs burrows along the sandy coasts of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. Females are the mobile sex that searches for males and initiates courtship. They prefer males which construct longer burrows, and males prefer virgin females in good body condition. The objective of this study was to compare sexual behavior patterns, as well as body characteristics and burrow dimensions, between two geographically distant locations of A. senex, one in Uruguay (Uruguayan location) and the other from central Argentina (Argentinean location). We found differences in the number of male abdominal vibrations, male and female touches during mating, and number of erections of male leg spines, which all were higher in matings of Argentinean pairs. On the other hand, male body mass and female body condition were higher in Uruguayan individuals. The wide distribution of A. senex could be determining variations in the biotic and abiotic features that affect the species, generating differences in the strength of selective forces acting on individuals from the two studied locations.
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Biología Reproductiva y Evolución, Cátedra de Diversidad Animal I, F.C.E.F.N, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, 5000, Córdoba, Argentina. fedrabollatti@gmail.com.|Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal, CONICET-UNC, Córdoba, Argentina. fedrabollatti@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Fedra
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bollatti
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Biología Reproductiva y Evolución, Cátedra de Diversidad Animal I, F.C.E.F.N, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, 5000, Córdoba, Argentina.
authors.forename: Virginia Garcia
authors.initials: VG
authors.lastname: Diaz
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Biología Reproductiva y Evolución, Cátedra de Diversidad Animal I, F.C.E.F.N, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, 5000, Córdoba, Argentina.|Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal, CONICET-UNC, Córdoba, Argentina.
authors.forename: Alfredo V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Peretti
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Etología, Ecología y Evolución, Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas Clemente Estable, 11600, Montevideo, Uruguay.
authors.forename: Anita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Aisenberg
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001118:Argentina; D049628:Body Size; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D009425:Nesting Behavior; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D013112:Spiders / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D014583:Uruguay
keywords: Body traits; Burrow size; Intraspecific variation; Lycosid; Sexual behaviors; Sexual selection