While there has long been interest in the form of sexual selection in males, studies characterizing this selection in females remain sparse. Sexual selection on females is predicted for sex-role reversed Mormon crickets, where males are choosy of mates and nutrient-deprived females compete for matings to gain nutritious nuptial gifts. I used selection analyses to describe the strength and form of sexual selection on female morphology. There was no positive sexual selection on the female body size traits predicted to be associated with male preferences and female competition. Instead, I detected selection for decreasing head width and mandible length. Additionally, I tested the validity of a commonly-used instantaneous measure of mating success (mated vs. unmated) by comparing selection results with those determined using a more detailed fitness measure (cumulative mating rate). The two fitness measures yielded similar patterns of selection, supporting the common sampling method comparing mated and unmated fractions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/18848 |
| Date | 15 February 2010 |
| Creators | Robson, Laura J. |
| Contributors | Gwynne, Darryl Trevor |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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