Cautious versus desperado males: predation risk affects courtship intensity but not female choice in a wolf spider

Ann L. Rypstra, Sean E. Walker and Matthew H. Persons

Behavioral Ecology, 2016, vol. 27, issue 3, 876-885

Abstract: Lay Summary Attractive male wolf spiders court cautiously when predators lurk, but unattractive males are so desperate for mates they increase courtship under predation risk. Although females pay attention to courtship under normal circumstances, they use symmetry to assess male quality under predation risk and still manage to select the best males. High-quality males have assets that they strive to protect, whereas low-quality males accept more risk, presumably in hopes of achieving some reproductive success.

Keywords: asset protection; asymmetry; courtship; desperado (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/arv234 (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:27:y:2016:i:3:p:876-885.

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 ().