Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: Male mating harassment may occur when females and males do not have the same mating objectives. Communal animals need to manage the costs of male mating harassment. Here, we demonstrate how desert locusts in dense populations reduce such conflicts through behaviors. In transient populations (of solitarious morphology but gregarious behavior), we found that nongravid females occupied separate sites far from males and were not mating, whereas males aggregated on open ground (leks), waiting for gravid females to enter the lekking sites. Once a male mounted a gravid female, no other males attacked the pair; mating pairs were thereby protected during the vulnerable time of oviposition. In comparison, solitarious locusts displayed a balanced sex ratio in low-density populations, and females mated irrespective of their ovarian state. Our results indicate that the mating behaviors of desert locusts are density dependent and that sex-biased behavioral group separation may minimize the costs of male mating harassment and competition.
Institutions: Kyoto University, Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences, Centre National de Lutte Antiacridienne, Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement, Université de Montpellier, Institut Agro Montpellier, Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement, Centre de Biologie pour la Gestion des Populations, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Institut du Sahel
Language: English
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W3205100545