empirical tests of bet-hedging polyandry hypothesis in female insects

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K06839
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 45040:Ecology and environment-related
• Research Institution: Kagawa University
• Principal Investigator: Yasui Yukio 香川大学, 農学部, 教授 (30325328)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: polyandry / evolution / bet-hedging

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In general, the more females males mate with, the more offspring they can produce, but females cannot mate with more than one male to have more offspring (only to swap fathers). In many animals, however, females mate with more than one male. The evolution of this "female multiple mating" is an important research topic in behavioral and evolutionary ecology.
In this study, we re-examined the bet-hedging hypothesis from a new theoretical perspective: we mated females with one to four males over a five-year period and compared egg hatching rates, in particular the rate of reproductive failure (i.e., not all eggs hatching). It was found that the greater the number of mates, the fewer the failures (higher intergenerational geometric mean fitness).

Free Research Field

進化生態学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

bet-hedging理論とは、予測できない変動環境のなかでいかに絶滅せずに長期的存続を達成するかを扱うものである。有性生殖における不妊の発生も重大問題である。本研究は単に昆虫の交尾行動を研究しているのではない。混迷の時代に生きる我々人類の存続やSDGｓなどの環境問題とも深く関わっている。