Mating plugs in polyandrous giants: which sex produces them, when, how and why?

BACKGROUND: Males usually produce mating plugs to reduce sperm competition. However, females can conceivably also produce mating plugs in order to prevent unwanted, superfluous and energetically costly matings. In spiders-appropriate models for testing plugging biology hypotheses-mating plugs may co...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Matjaž Kuntner, Matjaž Gregorič, Shichang Zhang, Simona Kralj-Fišer, Daiqin Li
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2012-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3400571?pdf=render