Fighting-related injuries do not affect mate choice in the giant mesquite bug, <i>Pachylis neocalifornicus</i>

Females often choose high-quality mates as they may confer benefits to the female. One way male quality may decline is due to the injuries that they can acquire during male-male combat. Females might assess males based on injury since injuries place energic demands on the body that could reduce their reproductive output. Thus, females might make mating decisions based on whether males have acquired these fighting-related injuries. Here, we tested this injury-mediated female mate choice hypothesis using the giant mesquite bug, <i>Pachylis neocalifornicus</i> (Hemiptera: Coreidae). This hypothesis predicts that females will choose uninjured males over injured males. We simulated non-lethal injuries that males could acquire during male-male contests and assayed mate choice. We compared mate choice of the injury group to a control group and found that fighting-related injuries did not affect mate choice. However, females were more likely to mate with males that had large sexually selected weapons while males were more likely to make mating attempts with large-bodied females. Additionally, the smaller a male's weaponry the more quickly they initiated their mating attempts. Our results do not support the injury-mediated mate choice hypothesis. Instead, they reveal that other factors besides fighting-related injuries appear to have a larger role in determining mating behavior patterns in this species.