Effect of delayed mating and prolonged engorgement on the reproductive fitness of female Amblyomma limbatum (Acari: Ixodidae) in marginal population areas

Reptile ticks mate while females are attached to their host. Following mating, females engorge, detach and then lay their eggs. This study examines whether the time that females of the reptile tick Amblyomma limbatum spend on hosts prior to mating and the time they take to engorge on hosts after mating influence their reproductive fitness, as measured by the number of viable eggs they produce. When compared with females that experienced no temperature-induced delay in mating, females attached for an initial period to hosts with body temperatures too low to induce mating had no decline in their reproductive fitness, once provided with suitable temperatures for mating. However, on hosts with suitable body temperatures for mating, female ticks that took longer to mate, took longer to engorge and had reduced reproductive fitness. In addition, females that spent more than 20 days feeding on hosts after mating had reduced reproductive fitness, irrespective of the time they spent on hosts prior to mating compared with females with shorter feeding periods. Thus, the time that A. limbatum females spent on hosts prior to mating and/or after mating has a significant bearing on the number viable progeny produced. The ecological implications of these results are discussed in relation to females colonizing marginal population areas at the edge of their distributional range.