Male-Male Clasping May Be Part of an Alternative Reproductive Tactic in Xenopus laevis

Heather J Rhodes, Rachel J Stevenson and Courtney L Ego

PLOS ONE, 2014, vol. 9, issue 5, 1-7

Abstract: Male Xenopus laevis frogs have been observed to clasp other males in a sustained, amplectant position, the purpose of which is unknown. We examined three possible hypotheses for this counter-intuitive behavior: 1) clasping males fail to discriminate the sex of the frogs they clasp; 2) male-male clasping is an aggressive or dominant behavior; or 3) that males clasp other males to gain proximity to breeding events and possibly engage in sperm competition. Our data, gathered through a series of behavioral experiments in the laboratory, refute the first two hypotheses. We found that males did not clasp indiscriminately, but showed a sex preference, with most males preferentially clasping a female, but a proportion preferentially clasping another male. Males that clasped another male when there was no female present were less likely to “win” reproductive access in a male-male-female triad, indicating that they did not establish dominance through clasping. However, those males did gain proximity to oviposition by continued male-male clasping in the presence of the female. Thus, our findings are consistent with, but cannot confirm, the third hypothesis of male-male clasping as an alternative reproductive tactic.

Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0097761

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0097761

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