The oviposition of unfertilized eggs depends on the presence of potential mates in a kissing bug

Franco Divito, Lorena Pompilio and Gabriel Manrique

Behavioral Ecology, 2026, vol. 37, issue 2, araf149.

Abstract: In most species, females face the risk of losing their oocytes if they remain unmated for a prolonged period. However, it remains unclear whether they have developed mechanisms to prevent the loss of fertilizable eggs according to the chances of finding a mate. We predict that virgin females will lay a lower proportion of their produced eggs when they perceive the presence of a male conspecific. We tested this prediction in the kissing bug Rhodnius prolixus, comparing the oviposition of virgin females randomly exposed to the presence of a potential mate or isolation over 10 d. We found that isolated females laid 3 times as many eggs as females exposed to the presence of a male. The dissection of females showed that both groups produced similar numbers of developed eggs, suggesting that differences in oviposition are due to changes in egg retention, rather than on egg production. We discuss the possible benefits of egg retention in virgin females, and how this process may contribute to their reproductive decision-making.

Keywords: infertile egg oviposition; male availability; oviposition dynamics; potential mate; reproductive decision-making; unfertilized egg retention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/araf149 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:beheco:v:37:y:2026:i:2:p:araf149.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Behavioral Ecology is currently edited by Louise Barrett

More articles in Behavioral Ecology from International Society for Behavioral Ecology Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().