Beauty in the eyes of the lovers: colour variation in female choosiness in a jumping spider (Siler semiglaucus) — ASN Events

Beauty in the eyes of the lovers: colour variation in female choosiness in a jumping spider (Siler semiglaucus) (#543)

Hua Zeng 1 , Daiqin Li 1
  1. National University of Singapore, Singapore, SINGAPORE

Males of many animal species exhibit amazing body colorations that are used to convey individual information about their age, fighting ability and mate quality to other conspecifics. Females usually choose potential mates on the basis of natural variation in the body colorations of conspecific males. Numerous studies have shown that a male’s body colorations influence female mating preference in vertebrates, but how natural variation of a male’s body colorations in invertebrate, particularly on spiders, affect female choosiness is relatively poorly understood. Jumping spiders have excellent vision, and males display brilliant body colorations, making them excellent models for studying the function of colour signals in sexual selection. In this study, we addressed the possibility that natural variation in male body colorations may contribute to female choosiness in a jumping spider Siler semiglaucus by presenting females with age- and size-matched conspecific males. By comparing female’s attention time towards paired males, together with quantified coloration of different male body parts, we were able to deduce whether females have preference for particular expression of male body coloration.