چکیده :
In scramble competition mating systems, individual behaviours related to maleemale competition are
expected to be plastic across sociosexual environments. However, the evolutionary forces that shape
individual differences in behavioural plasticity remain poorly understood. We measured behaviour
associated with scramble competition in male water striders, Tenagogerris euphrosyne, in two social
contexts. Male T. euphrosyne tend to mount other individuals or pairs indiscriminately and then
dismount if their target is either another male or a mating pair. We measured the speed with which a
focal male dismounted (i.e. his sensitivity to having made an inappropriate mounting) in each of these
contexts. We quantified temporal consistency of dismount speed within each context, as well as individual
variation in behavioural plasticity across contexts. We then estimated the effect of the behaviour
and of plasticity on individual fitness in different sex ratio conditions. We found that individuals differed
in their recognition sensitivity traits, and also in how plastic their sensitivity (i.e. dismount speed) was to
context (mating status or sex). When we measured the mating success of each male within experimental
groups kept at four different sex ratios, recognition sensitivity traits in both contexts interacted to
influence mating success, and there were significant differences in linear selection on sensitivity traits
between sex ratio treatments. We discuss how insensitive males evolve, and how individual variation in
behavioural plasticity could be maintained by selection or environmental variability.
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