The Evolution of Mating Systems in Insects and Arachnids

Hardback  397pp, 55 diagrams, 18 half tones, 21 tables  ISBN 0521580293      £110.00

Paperback  397pp  ISBN 0521589762      £40.00

Insects and arachnids display the most impressive diversity of mating and social behaviour among all animals. This book investigates sexual competition in these groups, and the variety of ways in which males and females pursue, persuade, manipulate, control and help one another, providing gain a better understanding of how conflicts and confluences of interest evolve together. Each chapter provides a comprehensive review of mating systems in particular insect and arachnid groups, discusses intrinsic and extrinsic factors responsible for observed mating strategies, and suggests fruitful avenues for further research. The book culminates in a synthesis, reviewing the data in terms of the theory of sexual conflict. This broad-based book will be of immense value to students and researchers interested in reproductive strategies, behavioural ecology, entomology and arachnology. The contents are as follows:

• Introduction
• Evolutionary perspectives on insect mating
• Sexual selection by cryptic female choice in insects and arachnids
• Natural and sexual selection components of odonate mating patterns
• Sexual selection in resource defense polygyny: lessons from territorial grasshoppers
• Reproductive strategies of the crickets (Orthoptera: Gryllidae)
• The evolution of edible 'sperm sacs' and other forms of courtship feeding in crickets, katydids and their kin (Orthoptera: Ensifera)
• Sexual conflicts and the evolution of mating patterns in the Zoraptera
• The evolution of water strider mating systems: causes and consequences of sexual conflicts
• Multiple mating, sperm competition, and cryptic female choice in the leaf beetles (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)
• Firefly mating ecology, selection and evolution
• Modern mating systems in archaic Holometabola: sexuality in neuropteroid insects
• Mating systems of parasitoid wasps
• Fig wasp mating systems: pollinators and parasites, sex ratio adjustment and male polymorphism, population structure and its consequences
• Predictions from sexual selection on the evolution of mating systems in moths
• Sexual dimorphism, mating systems and ecology in butterflies
• Lek behaviour of insects
• Mate choice and species isolation in swarming insects
• Function and evolution of antlers and eye stalks in flies
• Sex via the substrate: mating systems and sexual selection in pseudoscorpions
• Jumping spider mating strategies: sex with cannibals in and out of webs
• Sexual conflict and the evolution of mating systems

To find similar publications, click on a keyword below:
Cambridge University Press : ecology : entomology : evolution : semiochemicals : spiders and mites