Skip to main content

Table 1 Effect of mating number and nuptial feeding on female egg number or egg size in tettigoniids

From: Weighing costs and benefits of mating in bushcrickets (Insecta: Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae), with an emphasis on nuptial gifts, protandry and mate density

   

Egg number

Egg mass

 

Species

Character

Diet quality

Cohen's d

Cohen's d

Reference

Anabrus simplex

Mating frequency

low, high

ns

 

[112]

Conocephalus nigropleurum

Mating number (double/single)

high

1.56

 

[113]

 

Spermatophylax mass

high

ns

 

[113]

Decticus verrucivorus

Spermatophylax (yes/no)

low

ns

ns

[64]

Kawanaphila nartee

Spermatophylax (yes/no)

low

4.14

2.10

[65]

 

Spermatophylax (yes/no)

low

sig.

sig.

[76]

Leptophyes punctatissima

Spermatophylax (yes/no)

high

-2.55 - 0.70

-0.39 - 0.33

[111]

 

Mating number (double/single)

high

3.29 – 9.35

-0.39 - 0.33

[111]

Leptophyes laticauda

Spermatophylax (yes/no)

high

0.33 - 1.02

-1.60 - 1.20

[114]

Poecilimon mariannae

Mating number (double/single)

high

0.83

 

[108]

Poecilimon veluchianus

Spermatophylax (yes/no)

high

-1.70

2.66

[109]

Requena verticalis

Spermatophylax (yes/no)

high

-0.31

1.33

[102]

 

Spermatophylax number (7/3/1/no)

low

4.98-10.42

1.77-4.85

[100]

 

Spermatophylax number (3/1/no)

high

sig.

sig.

[63]

 

Spermatophylax number (3/1/no)

low

sig.

sig.

[63]

 

Spermatophylax mass (1.5/1/0.5)

high

ns

ns

[63]

 

Spermatophylax (yes/no)

high

0.61

-1.83

[103]

  1. I conducted a literature search for studies on female tettigoniid responses towards mating number, mating frequency, spermatophylax mass or the experimental provisioning of different numbers of spermatophylaces by using the ISI web of science and Google scholar. I also included articles mentioned in previous overviews [26, 27, 115] or a meta-analysis [97]. Data on nine tettigoniid species were found in 13 articles. I classified each study according to the experimental design used to compare females in different treatment groups. Females were tested in their responses towards: (1) mating frequencies with different males, (2) mating number, either single or double mated to two different males, (3) spermatophylax mass received during a single mating, or most commonly (4) the number of spermatophylaces consumed by single mated females, based on experimental studies that allowed or prevented female feeding on the spermatophylax after mating. For Requena verticalis experimenters varied the number of spermatophylaces between zero and seven. Because female responses might be higher in food-restricted conditions, I also specified the diet fed to females during the experiment as either high or low quality, based on the authors’ judgement. Figures in bold show significant differences between treatment groups according to the original references. For an independent measurement of effect sizes, I calculated the value of Cohen's d, using the means and standard deviations of two groups (treatment and control, [116]). Cohen’s d is positive, if the mean difference is in the predicted direction, with female fecundity increasing with mating number or spermatophylax feeding. Conventionally, a Cohen’s d of 0.2-0.3 is interpreted as a small, 0.5 as a medium and ≥ 0.8 as a large effect. Multiple data sets in the same study were presented as range. In cases where the reference does not allow calculation of Cohen’s d due to missing data, I indicated whether results were reported as significant (sig.) or non-significant (ns).