Male Mating Strategies in the Bee Centris pallida Fox (Anthophoridae: Hymenoptera)

Abstract

Males of the solitary bee C. pallida practice 1 of 2 alternative mate-location strategies, either searching emergence areas for sites at which to dig up virgin females, or hovering by shrubs and trees, waiting for the arrival of airborne virgin females. The size of the male is related to which of these strategies he adopts, with the larger males more commonly patrolling and digging and the smaller males more commonly hovering. Large males are superior in competitive disputes over digging sites and appear to enjoy much greater reproductive success than males at the lower end of the spectrum of size. Despite this, large males are relatively rare in the population as a whole. Selection acts on females with respect to how they divide their total investment in male offspring. The possibility that females, which provision a number of small cells (producing several small males), may be as fit as or fitter than females that divide their investment into relatively few packets and produce a few large males was examined.