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Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0PeerJ

Anti-predation behavior resolves sexual conflict over mating rate and duration in a protandric-simultaneous hermaphrodite

  • J. Antonio Baeza1,2,3
  1. 1Department of Biological Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, United States of America
  2. 2Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce, Smithsonian Institution, Fort Pierce, FL, United States of America
  3. 3Departamento de Biologìa Marina, Universidad Catolica del Norte, Coquimbo, Chile
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Abstract

The reproductive interests of males and females rarely coincide, and thus, sexual conflict should be widespread in sexual species and favor the evolution of traits that bias the outcome of mating interactions towards the participant’s own interests. Sexual conflict theory has achieved considerable sophistication since its formal proposal. Yet, the evolutionary implications of this process in species other than those with separate sexes remain ill-explored. I examined sexual conflict in Lysmata wurdemanni , a shrimp that exhibits protandric simultaneous hermaphroditism, a peculiar sexual system where individuals invariably mature and reproduce as male first before becoming simultaneous hermaphrodites. In Lysmata wurdemanni , exacerbated mating costs for female-role individuals included death by too-eager-to-mate male-role individuals and resulted in the unprecedented employment by female-role hermaphrodites of anti-predatory tactics (escape response consisting of a backward tail flipping that rapidly propel shrimp away from danger) to actively resist harassment and to exert control over copula termination. Sexual conflict does occur in species featuring unconventional sexual systems and likely has implications for sex allocation patterns.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{baeza2026antipredation,
  title = {{Anti-predation behavior resolves sexual conflict over mating rate and duration in a protandric-simultaneous hermaphrodite}},
  author = {J. Antonio Baeza},
  journal = {PeerJ},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.7717/peerj.21804},
  url = {https://peerj.com/articles/21804},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Anti-predation behavior resolves sexual conflict over mating rate and duration in a protandric-simultaneous hermaphrodite
AU  - J. Antonio Baeza
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/08
JO  - PeerJ
DO  - 10.7717/peerj.21804
UR  - https://peerj.com/articles/21804
AB  - The reproductive interests of males and females rarely coincide, and thus, sexual conflict should be widespread in sexual species and favor the evolution of traits that bias the outcome of mating interactions towards the participant’s own interests. Sexual conflict theory has achieved considerable sophistication since its formal proposal. Yet, the evolutionary implications of this process in species other than those with separate sexes remain ill-explored. I examined sexual conflict in Lysmata wurdemanni , a shrimp that exhibits protandric simultaneous hermaphroditism, a peculiar sexual system where individuals invariably mature and reproduce as male first before becoming simultaneous hermaphrodites. In Lysmata wurdemanni , exacerbated mating costs for female-role individuals included death by too-eager-to-mate male-role individuals and resulted in the unprecedented employment by female-role hermaphrodites of anti-predatory tactics (escape response consisting of a backward tail flipping that rapidly propel shrimp away from danger) to actively resist harassment and to exert control over copula termination. Sexual conflict does occur in species featuring unconventional sexual systems and likely has implications for sex allocation patterns.
SN  - 2167-8359
ER  -