A new study led by Dr Sophie Mowles of Anglia Ruskin University shows how energetic courtship displays of male Cuban burrowing cockroaches attract female partners.
A courting male Cuban burrowing cockroach (Byrsotria fumigata) performing a full wing raise. Image credit: Sophie Mowles / Natalie Jepson.
Male Cuban burrowing cockroaches (Byrsotria fumigata) perform a ‘wing-raising’ ritual to attract a female, which involves the repeated vertical flaring and lowering of their wings.
Dr Mowles and her colleague, Dr Natalie Jepson of the University of Nottingham, found the ones that produced the most energetic displays were more likely to attract a female.
In fact males that did attract a mate performed the wing-raising on average four times more vigorously as the ones that didn’t.
And using a specially constructed racetrack, the team conducted experiments to measure the amount of energy expended during the display.
“Our experiments show that the courtship display significantly fatigues the male cockroach, and it’s the energy expended during the display, rather than other factors such as size of the male, that is used by females to inform their mating decisions,” Dr Mowles said.
“Signs of male stamina are clearly important to the females, presumably as it ensures they pass good genes on to their offspring,” she said.
“The females will want to ensure their offspring have high physical fitness, providing them with the ability to evade predators, defeat rivals and attract females themselves.”
“Courtship displays in many taxa often involve dynamic repetitive actions and as such, signals of stamina in courtship may be more widespread than previously thought,” the scientists concluded.
Their findings were published November 25 in the journal PLoS ONE.
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Mowles SL & Jepson NM. 2015. Physiological Costs of Repetitive Courtship Displays in Cockroaches Handicap Locomotor Performance. PLoS ONE 10 (11): e0143664; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0143664
