Honest cues contribute to male choice for female guarding in a herbivorous spider mite

Abstract Mate choice is a wide-spread phenomenon with important effects on ecological and evolutionary dynamics of successive generations. Increasing evidence shows that males can choose females if females vary in quality and these mating choices can strongly impact fitness. In the herbivorous spider mite Tetranychus urticae males engage in precopulatory mate guarding of quiescent females, and it is known that females vary in their time to sexual maturity and fecundity. However, our understanding of how males maximize their reproductive success and which female phenotypic traits are important cues for their mating decisions are still limited. In many arthropod species, female body size and pheromones are well known proxies for fecundity. These traits—and thus possibly male mating decisions—are however sensitive to environmental (dietary) stress. By allowing males to freely choose amongst many (synchronized) females in a controlled semi natural environment, we found that guarded females have a higher fecundity and are closer to sexual maturity than non-guarded females. Despite the fact that female body size was positively correlated with fecundity and significantly influenced by the environment, males did not discriminate on body size nor did we find evidence that they used other cues like cuticular pheromones or copying behavior (social cues). In conclusion we were able to show male mate preference for females that are closer to sexual maturity and have higher fecundity, but we were unable to identify the female traits that signal this information