Size-dependent mating pattern in a nuptial gift-giving insect

Thanatosis as an adaptive male mating strategy in the nuptial gift–giving spider Pisaura mirabilis

Males and females often experience different optima in mating rate, which may cause evolution of female resistance to matings and male counter adaptations to increase mating rate. Males of the spider Pisaura mirabilis display a spectacular mating behavior involving a nuptial gift and thanatosis (death feigning). Thanatosis in a sexual context is exceptional and was suggested to function as an a...

Mating promotes lactic-acid gut bacteria in a gift-giving insect

Gift Giving with Emotions

This paper presents a two-player, psychological game-theoretic model of gift giving where emotions matter. Beliefs enter directly into players’ payoff functions. Surprise, disappointment, embarrassment and pride arise from comparing players’ beliefs about the gift they will give or receive to the actual choice of gift. Depending on beliefs and the cost of the gift, a gift-giving, a non-gift-giv...

Running head : Gift Giving in Courtship Gift Giving as Costly Signaling in Courtship Contexts

Social scientists from a variety of fields have grappled with questions about why gift giving exists and where its utility comes from because it is economically inefficient. Economic models of sexual relationships (e.g., Baumeister & Vohs, 2004) propose that gifts given by men are motivated by attempts to barter for access to sex. We offer an alternative model, based on costly signaling theory ...

Diet-dependent female evolution influences male lifespan in a nuptial feeding insect.

Theory predicts that lifespan will depend on the dietary intake of an individual, the allocation of resources towards reproduction and the costs imposed by the opposite sex. Although females typically bear the majority of the cost of offspring production, nuptial feeding invertebrates provide an ideal opportunity to examine the extent to which reproductive interactions through gift provisioning...