Male mating strategies through manipulation of female-perceived predation risk: A minireview and a hypothesis

Abstract

In this minireview we focus on how males may exploit female's sensitivity to predation risk in the context of mating. It has been shown in studies on guppies and jumping spiders that in response to altered female behaviors, which are adaptations to the unfavorable environment and a consequence of females' higher sensitivity to predator's presence as well as females' higher predation risk, males can adopt condition-dependent mating tactics. It appears that in such cases males do not modify their reproductive behavior directly in response to their own perception of predation risk, but indirectly in response to changes in female behavior induced by predator presence. It has also been recently shown in crabs that males can exploit female behavior by creating safer habitat spots, which increases the male mating success. Hence all the evidence suggests that males not only respond to female sensitivity to the natural variation in predation risk, but that males can also exploit female behavior by altering the environment. As a logical extension of these findings, we present a hypothesis that in certain conditions males can manipulate the environment in order to increase the predation risk and to induce female behaviors that enhance the male's mating success with the increased predation risk. We propose that such a manipulation to increase predation risk is expected to evolve in males of species with a strong sexual conflict and female-biased predation risk. Although empirical evidence has not been yet shown, initial observations in a water strider species in Korea, Gerris gracilicornis, seem to support this hypothesis.