In order to estimate mating latency, the genitalia of 4 5 day old virgin males was dusted with fluorescent powder [25] and then each male was placed in a cylindrical hanging cage containing a 4 5 day old virgin female.
When the survival probability of males is taken into account, winged males are more likely to mate multiply and in consequence have a higher estimated average mating success than ergatoid males.
We estimated the mating efficiency of MB210 at 84.6% and the number of diploid exconjugants at 3.3×108.
The high levels of estimated assortative mating within populations we found may have contributed to the rapid evolution of early flowering time following a natural drought seen in a previous study (Franks et al. 2007).
Despite the importance of assortative mating for evolution, the likelihood of assortative mating by flowering time, and the theoretical work on this topic (Fisher 1958; Felsenstein 1981; Fox 2003; Weis 2005), only one previous study (Weis and Kossler 2004) estimated assortative mating using full flowering schedule information.
These markers could also be used to estimate the mating system of F. sericea.
In this analysis, we used the genotypes of progenies to estimate the mating system parameters of the maternal parent in the field using the Expectation-Maximization method [ 37].
Using the Australian field cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus as a model organism, we use three measures of male attractiveness to estimate fitness; mating success, the duration of courtship required to elicit copulation, and subsequent spermatophore attachment duration.
By utilizing seven paternally inherited chloroplast microsatellite loci, we estimated the mating pattern parameters for each patch, including the level of selfing, the amount of immigrant pollen and the effective number of pollen sources (Nep).
Estimated assortative mating was also lower in the dry (BB) than in the wet site (Arb) population and lower in the long than in the short season treatment (Fig. 1).
