Female hunger can explain variation in cannibalistic behavior despite male sacrifice in redback spiders

Male Australian redback spiders (Latrodtctus hasselti Thorell:Theriidae) place their abdomens directly over their mate's mouthpartsduring copulation, increasing the likelihood of sexual cannibalism.Male sacrifice may be adaptive because cannibalized males increasetheir paternity relative to those that are not eaten. Despitemale sacrifice behavior, however, up to 50% of laboratory matingsmay end without sexual cannibalism. Here, I report a similarpattern in the field, where males were not cannibalized in 35%of observed matings (6/17). I examined variation in female cannibalisticbehavior by evaluating the following three hypotheses for theoccurrence of cannibalism from the female perspective: (1) themistaken identity hypothesis proposes that females sometimescannibalize males because they mistake them for prey, (2) themate rejection hypothesis predicts that females cannibalizemales who are unacceptable as mates, and (3) the feeding opportunismhypothesis predicts that hungry females are more likely to becannibalistic Field observations refuted die first two hypotheses:females recognized males as potential mates (i.e., nonprey),and cannibalized and noncannibalized males were not phenotypicallydifferent. The feeding opportunism hypothesis was supported.In staged field matings, cannibalistic females were hungrierthan their noncannibaUstic counter-parts. Moreover, a logisticregression analysis indicated that hunger was a significantpredictor of cannibalism. Because redback males are below thetypical prey size that females accept, well-fed females areless likely to consume their mates, despite the vulnerable matingposture. These results indicate that, although males facilitatesexual cannibalism, their fate may depend on the female's physicalcondition.