Previous interspecific courtship impairs female receptivity to conspecifics in the parasitoid wasp nasonia longicornis but not in n. Vitripennis

Abstract

Interspecific sexual interactions are not uncommon in animals. In sympatry, females often face the risk of accidentally mating with a heterospecific male. Based on the actual risks imposed by the environment at a given time and place, females should be able to adjust their mate acceptance in order to avoid interspecific copulations as well as accidentally refusing to mate with a conspecific. We investigate the ability of females of the two parasitoid wasp species Nasonia vitripennis (Nv) and N. longicornis (Nl) to adjust their mate acceptance in response to previous unsuccessful courtship by heterospecific males. We show that Nl females are more reluctant to mate with a conspecific male when having been courted previously by a heterospecific male, but Nv females are not. We argue that this strategy is reasonable for Nl females but not for Nv females, which follow a different strategy to avoid the fitness costs imposed by heterospecific copulations.