Demonstrating mate choice copying in spiders requires further research

Authors

R. Tucker Gilman, University of ManchesterFollow
Kasey Fowler-Finn, Saint Louis UniversityFollow
Eileen A. Hebets, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

2020

Citation

Current Zoology, 2020, 66(2), 215–216 doi: 10.1093/cz/zoz033

Comments

(c) The Author(s) (2019).

Abstract

Mate choice copying—when individuals learn to prefer mates or mate types that have been chosen by others—can influence trait evo-lution and speciation (Varela et al. 2018; Dion et al. 2019). Most examples of mate choice copying are from fish, birds, and mammals including humans (Varela et al. 2018). However, 2 invertebrate examples—fruit flies and wolf spiders—have been used to argue that the phenomenon may be phylogenetically widespread, and perhaps the rule rather than the exception in nature (Varela et al. 2018). Here, we revisit the evidence for mate choice copying in wolf spiders (Fowler-Finn et al. 2015) in light of new data (Gilman et al. 2018). Then, we discuss why mate choice copying is a phenomenon that is likely to occur in wolf spiders, and why this deserves attention.