The Evolution of Orthopteran Mating Systems and the Reproductive Ecology of New Zealand Cave Wētā
type: CreativeWork
description: Sexual selection has long been recognised as driving the evolution of diverse morphological and behavioural traits in animals. Decades of concerted research into the topic has uncovered reproductive adaptations ranging from the beautiful to the horrific, and insects provide some of the most striking examples from all parts of that spectrum. The diversity of insects, their mating systems, and their reproductive adaptations has made them crucial to our understanding of sexual selection and the evolution of sexual reproduction itself. Their natural amenability to observation and experimentation has granted us many useful and informative model systems for that endeavour. In particular, the Orthoptera (crickets, grasshoppers, katydids, wētā and their allies) have provided many model species for the study of acoustic mate calling, nuptial provisioning, intrasexual combat, the economics of reproduction that contribute to sexual conflict, and countless other topics in the realm of reproductive ecology. The current research delves into the diversity of mating system traits exhibited by the order, with a comprehensive review of the literature, as well as targeted evolutionary hypothesis testing via the phylogenetic comparative method. I then investigate in detail the reproductive ecology of New Zealand cave wētā, which are fascinating representatives of a globally distributed but hardly-studied orthopteran family, the Rhaphidophoridae. Firstly I investigate orthopteran reproductive ecology with analyses of sexual evolution across the order. I test for phylogenetic signal, ancestral character states and correlated evolution with data derived from a comprehensive literature search, using a synthetic supertree assembled for that purpose by tree grafting. The results of this approach indicated trends of strong evolutionary conservatism in orthopteran sexual traits, and a probable ancestral mating system that involved protandry, male-male combat and mate-guarding, acoustic mat…
abstract: Sexual selection has long been recognised as driving the evolution of diverse morphological and behavioural traits in animals. Decades of concerted research into the topic has uncovered reproductive adaptations ranging from the beautiful to the horrific, and insects provide some of the most striking examples from all parts of that spectrum. The diversity of insects, their mating systems, and their reproductive adaptations has made them crucial to our understanding of sexual selection and the evolution of sexual reproduction itself. Their natural amenability to observation and experimentation has granted us many useful and informative model systems for that endeavour. In particular, the Orthoptera (crickets, grasshoppers, katydids, wētā and their allies) have provided many model species for the study of acoustic mate calling, nuptial provisioning, intrasexual combat, the economics of reproduction that contribute to sexual conflict, and countless other topics in the realm of reproductive ecology. The current research delves into the diversity of mating system traits exhibited by the order, with a comprehensive review of the literature, as well as targeted evolutionary hypothesis testing via the phylogenetic comparative method. I then investigate in detail the reproductive ecology of New Zealand cave wētā, which are fascinating representatives of a globally distributed but hardly-studied orthopteran family, the Rhaphidophoridae. Firstly I investigate orthopteran reproductive ecology with analyses of sexual evolution across the order. I test for phylogenetic signal, ancestral character states and correlated evolution with data derived from a comprehensive literature search, using a synthetic supertree assembled for that purpose by tree grafting. The results of this approach indicated trends of strong evolutionary conservatism in orthopteran sexual traits, and a probable ancestral mating system that involved protandry, male-male combat and mate-guarding, acoustic mat…
author: Fea, Murray
license: https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm
date published: 2018
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:07:07Z
provider: University of Auckland
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: ResearchSpace@Auckland

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/2292/45031