Mari Katvala

Male choice for current female fecundity in a polyandrous egg-carrying bug

Studies of costs and benefits of mate choice are often focused on females. However, direct and indirect benefits in mate choice are important in sexual selection of both sexes and, occasionally, are even larger among males. We studied male choice and costs of courting in the egg-carrying golden egg bug, Phyllomorpha laciniata Vill (Heteroptera, Coreidae). Females lay eggs on the backs of adult conspecifics, both males and females. They copulate frequently during the reproductive period, and are receptive independently of their current fecundity. Males often receive nonpaternal eggs while courting or while in copula. Egg carrying is costly because of an increased predation risk. We manipulated current female fecundity (the number of chorionated eggs in a female ovarium) by depriving half the females of an egg-laying surface, namely a conspecific. A male enclosed with a gravid and a nongravid female preferred the gravid one. Thus, males selected females by their current fecundity. Courting was costly for males: more than half the males (57%) received nonpaternal eggs while courting a female. Gravid females laid more eggs before mating than nongravid females but they were likely to lay eggs soon after mating. Thus, in polyandrous species, such as the golden egg bug, when there is a high risk of females remating before egg laying, males should select females relative to immediate benefits.

“Everything is plentiful—Except attention”. Attention data of scientific journals on social web tools

One hundred scientific and scholarly journal web sites were investigated to find out their use of social media tools and to examine attention data revealed by them. Seventy-eight scientific journals used social media tools, RSS being the most common. Interactive social media tools – Facebook, Twitter and blogs – were present on 19 journal web sites. Attention data were operationalised as liking, commenting or sharing postings on Facebook, Twitter or blog texts or linking to articles, liking a YouTube entry or following a journal on Twitter. Facebook and blog sites of the journals had varying roles with respect to content generated by readers and the journal, and the amount of attention data received by the journals’ Facebook, Twitter and blog sites also showed great variation. In scientific communication, social media have a role of their own, complementing that of scientific journals, and their active use indicates the clear demand for them. Attention is difficult to measure also by social media, but their interactive features obviously indicate one part of it, and attention economy presents a fruitful viewpoint for studying scientific communication by providing relevant and useful concepts that describe its characteristics and factors that influence the attention it receives.

The effect of conspecific density on female reproduction in an egg-carrying bug

The availability of high-quality egg-laying substrates is likely to determine female reproductive success in insects. The egg-laying substrate may also be a conspecific, which is the case in the golden egg bug, Phyllomorpha laciniata, Vill. Female bugs oviposit mainly on nonparental males and other females. Conspecifics are clearly preferred to the bugs food plant. We tested the effect of conspecific density on female egg laying in two experiments where an egg-laying focal female was accompanied by males, females or both in two sizes of enclosures for 8 days. Fewer eggs were laid in large enclosures than in small ones and an increase in number of conspecifics resulted in more eggs being laid on them. This study shows that conspecifics are an important resource for female golden egg bugs in terms of egg laying. In addition, egg survival is likely to be affected by the females chances of laying eggs on conspecifics.