Alfredo V. Peretti

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• Professor
• Professor at National University of Córdoba

The paradigm of ‘selective females’ and ‘competing males’ has evolved into a multifactorial interpretation of reproductive decisions, which can lead to prudence in reproductive efforts and adjustability in mate selectivity patterns. In mutual mate choice scenarios, sexual selection may act on the same or different male and female traits, with both...

Despite having >1200 described species and despite their nearly worldwide distribution and prevalence in many xeric ecosystems, relative to many other arachnid groups, we know little about the natural history and behaviour of animals in the order Solifugae (camel spiders, sun spiders, sun scorpions, etc.). Here, we review the current solifuge liter...

Recent advances in higher-level invertebrate phylogeny have leveraged shared features of genomic architecture to resolve contentious nodes across the tree of life. Yet, the interordinal relationships within Chelicerata have remained recalcitrant given competing topologies in recent molecular analyses. As such, relationships between topologically un...

Although strongly criticized since the 90s, there is still a heavy bias in the field of sexual selection towards studying males. Arachnids are no exception, with most researchers ignoring female behaviors. A stunning example is that of female quiescence during or after copulation, defined with different terms but in ways that seem to nullify female...

This timely book revisits cryptic female choice in arthropods, gathering detailed contributions from around the world to address key behavioral, ecological and evolutionary questions. The reader will find a critical summary of major breakthroughs in taxon-oriented chapters that offer many new perspectives and cases to explore and in many cases unpu...

Seasonal reproductive dynamics and senescence have profound impacts on male fertility, yet these processes remain understudied in scorpions. This study investigates how reproductive parameters—such as testicular mass, sperm quantity, and viability—change over the course of the reproductive season in Urophonius achalensis males. We found that early-...

Intraspecific sexual communication, crucial in reproductive interactions, often involves the interchange of signals like vibrations, visual signals, and chemical compounds like sex chemical cues. Within the arachnids, solifuges (“camel spiders”) are an understudied group in terms of the detection of chemical compounds during mate searching and sexu...

Neofunctionalization of duplicated gene copies is thought to be an important process underlying the origin of evolutionary novelty and provides an elegant mechanism for the origin of new phenotypic traits. One putative case where a new gene copy has been linked to a novel morphological trait is the origin of the arachnid patella, a taxonomically re...

Neofunctionalization of duplicated gene copies is thought to be an important process underlying the origin of evolutionary novelty and provides an elegant mechanism for the origin of new phenotypic traits. One putative case where a new gene copy has been linked to a novel morphological trait is the origin of the arachnid patella, a taxonomically re...

Sexual dimorphism (SD), the divergence of secondary sexual traits between males and females within a species, can arise from diverse evolutionary forces, such as natural selection, mate choice, and intrasexual competition. Allometric scaling patterns of dimorphic traits are related to their functional roles and the different selective pressures tha...

Neofunctionalization of duplicated gene copies is thought to be an important process underlying the origin of evolutionary novelty and provides an elegant mechanism for the origin of new phenotypic traits. One putative case where a new gene copy has been linked to a novel morphological trait is the origin of the arachnid patella, a taxonomically re...

To establish criteria and theoretical possibilities for rules and exceptions in biology, it is helpful first to analyze what a rule is, as well as its many variants. This chapter presents some hierarchical levels of rules in biology, with examples of the most comprehensive and the most restrictive. In both contexts, we discuss the concepts of laws,...

There is a complex relationship between rules and exceptions in different contexts. Rules and exceptions are not always distinct but rather dynamically related concepts. There are a variety of alternative terms, such as patterns, normalities, rarities, and abnormalities, that can be used interchangeably with rules and exceptions. This emphasizes th...

In this chapter, we look at the other side, the cases where the rules have become exceptions. The factors responsible for these changes are diverse. Let us consider, for example, those changes produced by nature itself, where certain characters, behaviors, and even interactions that were previously very common became rare or even disappeared; chang...

In chapter 8, we focus on the dynamics of changes between rules and exceptions in sciences linked to biology and in other sciences further removed from it. Within the sciences related to biology, we can name changes in medicine such as the interpretations of rare diseases and changes in the conception of diseases such as autism and obesity. Changes...

Finally, chapter 9 is intended to be a closing section of this book, summarizing in some way what has been said in the previous chapters. In this sense, we have discussed the dynamics between rules and exceptions, taking into account different factors involved in such dynamics. Some changes are generated by nature itself, and others are promoted, d...

When rules are mentioned in biology, the opposite concept of exceptions immediately arises. In this chapter, we analyze the existing definitions of what an exception is in general and in life sciences. We give examples that invite us to reflect on the richness and complexity of exceptions since it is not just an absolute concept, but there can be g...

In biology, theories are constantly enriched and adapted by new examples and scientific advances. In this chapter, we focus on the debate about the rules in biology and their persistence over time as rules accepted by the scientific community. We exemplify this with Darwin’s theory of natural selection, which has been nourished by new disciplines a...

In this chapter, we deal with the change from the exception to the rule in biological systems, both by the action of nature and by the changes that occur due to human action. We talk about the origin of life on planet Earth, the first organisms that colonized primitive environments and changed the atmosphere, giving rise to new forms of life, the a...

We present the counterpart to Chap. 4 in Chap. 5, where we focus on the role of “permanent” exceptions and their importance in scientific knowledge and biology. These exceptions can be analyzed at any scale and are often not appreciated beyond anecdotal mentions. They can be aberrant or teratological groups, taxonomic groups unique for some feature...

Components of the same structure or characters of the same individual might respond differently to natural and sexual selective pressures, showing complex morphological patterns. Besides, studying interactions between species plays a crucial role in understanding the diversification of sex-linked phenotypes. Specifically, when two closely related s...

This is the first book to cover and explore the rules and exceptions in biology. It presents past and current perspectives on the subject and discusses the various situations of transition from rule to exception and vice versa. In doing so, the book fills a gap in the scientific literature and stimulates useful and valuable discussions among resear...

Seasonality considerably impacts on the life of organisms and leads to numerous evolutionary adaptations. Some species face seasonal changes by entering a diapause during different life stages. During adulthood, a diapause in the non-reproductive period can affect male gametogenesis as, for example, it occurs in insects. Spiders are distributed wor...

In animals where both males and females have high costs associated with reproduction, it is not rare that both sexes evaluate their potential mate conditions to make the most beneficial choice according to their preferences. Parasite-mediated selection theories predict that individuals would evaluate the ability of their potential mates to resist p...

The family Lycosidae is one of the spider families with the greatest diversity of species and with varied and striking strategies. Studies on Neotropical wolf spiders have contributed new and valuable information to the field of sexual selection for several decades, having discovered cases that differ markedly from previously known patterns, not on...

Reproductive interference (RI) can occur when two related species coexist in sympatry, involving sexual attraction, mating, and even hybridization between heterospecifics. Consequently, reproductive key characters of these species may suffer morphological shifts in sympatry to avoid the success of heterospecific sexual interactions, a phenomenon kn...

The spermatozoa of scorpions are often bundled together, forming a type of sperm conjugation known as a sperm package. Sperm packages may be found inside the testes and seminal vesicles but vanish in the female atrium, leaving free spermatozoa. Previous studies, based on a limited number of taxa, suggested a diversity of sperm package morphology ac...

Each species and sex can develop different reproductive strategies to optimize their fitness while assigning reproductive effort. Allocosa senex is a sex-role reversed spider whose males construct long burrows in the sand. They wait for wandering females to approach, assess their sexual partners and donate their constructions to females after copul...

There are few works on the reproductive behavior of species of cribellate spiders. Even more scarce are studies of the reproductive behavior of representatives of the Desidae, such as the genus Metaltella Mello-Leit˜ao, 1931. In this paper, we describe for the first time the reproductive behavior of Metaltella iheringi (Keyserling, 1891), a species...

Previous studies have reported that males augment their reproductive success by increasing the number of females with which they copulate, and that such copulations are not energetically demanding in terms of trivial sperm production costs. However, we now know that males do pay reproductive costs. As males mate successively, a reduction in the per...

The exploration of new and diverse animal groups in the study of sexual selection is both necessary and important to help better understand broad patterns and test sexual selection hypotheses regarding the evolutionary origins and maintenance of reproductive tactics and associated traits. Solifuges are, in this matter, an exceptional group and very...

Body size, nuptial gift characteristics and courtship behaviour, among other traits, can reflect the quality of a potential mate and, thus, might be under sexual selection. To maximize their mating success, individuals can show behavioural plasticity in sexual context. Allocosa senex is a burrow-digging wolf spider that exhibits reversal courtship...

Sexual communication in mate choice scenarios involves nonmutually exclusive functions: species recognition, mate location and mate assessment. Most studies on sexual communication in mate choice have focused on female assessment of conspicuous male traits, such as visual and acoustic signals. Only a few studies have addressed male assessment of fe...

In terms of conservation, Argentinian odonates have not been assessed using a quantitative approach. One way to achieve this is by modelling their distribution to gather the extent of occurrence. Thus, we modelled the current and future (projected year, 2050) potential distribution of 44 odonate species that occur in Argentina as well as in neighbo...

Internally fertilized animals are characterized by the transfer of their spermatozoa during copulation. However, the duration of copulation is highly variable, which suggests that they may serve for other functions apart from spermatozoa transfer. For example, during copulation, males can stimulate the female by using genitalic movements and/or by...

Different organisms (mainly poikilotherms) are subject to environmental fluctuations that could affect their normal physiological functioning (e.g., by destabilization of biomembranes and rupture of biomolecules). As a result, animals regulate their body temperature and adapt to different environmental conditions through various physiological strat...

Urbanization causes the loss of large amounts of habitat and produces significant changes in environmental conditions with consequences in the individual's behavior, morphology, and physiology in natural populations. The urbanization can impact in the individual's development instability (DI) that may be measured with the fluctuating asymmetry (FA)...

One remarkable reproductive feature in animals with internal fertilization is a reduction in sperm viability over time in females. Whether this reduction is driven by male–male competition and/or cryptic female choice is unclear. From the perspective of cryptic female choice, we postulated that sperm viability is affected by a particular male copul...

One remarkable reproductive feature in animals with internal fertilization is a reduction in sperm viability over time in females. Whether this reduction is driven by male-male competition and/or cryptic female choice is unclear. From the perspective of cryptic female choice, we postulated that sperm viability is affected by a particular male copul...

Mating plugs have been proposed as a mechanism that has evolved to avoid sperm competition. Their structure and composition vary across taxa and are related to the effectiveness of its function. This effectiveness could be related to different evolutionary interests of the sexes. Urophonius brachycentrus and Urophonius achalensis (Scorpiones, Bothr...

Sexual dimorphism between females and males can sometimes be related to particular mating behaviors. In pseudoscorpions, very little is known about the relationship between sexual size dimorphism (SSD) and reproductive behavior. This paper describes sexual dimorphism and the mating behavior patterns of Lustrochernes argentinus (Thorell, 1877), a Ne...

Polygynous males increase their reproductive success by fertilizing as many females as possible. However, this strategy can lead to costs for the males. This study focused on an atypical wolf spider that lives in webs, Aglaoctenus lagotis. Previous studies report polyandrous females, but little is known about the mating strategy of males and its po...

In spiders, pheromones are known to be responsible for attracting the opposite sex, eliciting male searching and courtship behaviors, as well as for synchronizing potential mates in space and time. Most spiders are cannibalistic and aggressive. Thus, early recognition of a female as a possible mate is essential for males, who may suffer high energe...

Populations of a species may show variation in mating systems, especially when the species is widely distributed. Aglaoctenus lagotis is a funnel-web wolf spider distributed in South America and with a ‘central Argentina form’ (CA) and a ‘southern Uruguay form’ (SU). Both forms differ in sexual behaviour, population density and copulatory season. T...

In a sexual context, it is expected that females base their choice of mate on the be‐ haviours that males perform during courtship, as such behaviours are associated with the male's mate quality. Stridulation is one form of female communication in arthropods, for example, spiders. In spiders, stridulation during sexual interactions is relatively co...

Several studies have shown that sperm viability (SV) is a key trait during sexual competition. However, this has not yet been tested in spiders as no protocol has been developed to quantify SV. Here, we describe a methodology for estimating SV using the pholcid spider Holocnemus pluchei (Scopoli, 1763). In this method, male spermatozoa were release...

After mating, females may experience a decline in sexual receptivity and attractive‐ ness that may be associated with changes in the production and emission of sex pheromones. In some cases, these changes are produced by chemical substances or structures (e.g., mating plugs) produced by males as a strategy to avoid or reduce sperm competition. In s...

Immune defense is a key feature in the life history of organisms, expensive to maintain, highly regulated by individuals and exposed to physiological and evolutionary trade-offs. In chelicerates, relatively scarce are the studies that relate postcopulatory mechanisms and immune response parameters. This work makes an approximation to the female’s i...

Mean values and standard deviations of different immunological parameters of Urophonius brachycentrus, U. achalensis and Z. fuscus. The melanotic (ME) and non-melanotic (NME) encapsulation response was measured in all three zones of implants placed in the body cavity (eliciting systemic immune response) and in the female genitalia (eliciting local...

Genital plugs and genital implants of the study species. (A) ‘Distal’ zone of genital plug below the female genital operculum of Urophonius achalensis. (B) Protruding distal portion of the genital implant positioned within the female genital atrium of Urophonius achalensis. (C) Implant inserted in the body cavity (in the membrane between the fifth...

Implants eliciting local vs systemic immunological response in females of scorpion species. (A) Implant inserted in the body cavity of Zabius fuscus female. (B) Implant inserted in the body cavity of Urophonius brachycentrus female. (C) Implant inserted in the genitalia of Z. fuscus female. (D) Implant inserted in the genitalia of U. achalensis fem...

The production of spermatophore and ejaculate is energetically expensive for males. High mating rates may accelerate sperm depletion and progressively decrease the size of the ejaculates. Sperm competition can shape spermatozoon numbers according to different signals and cues such as number of potential rivals or female mating status. Factors influ...

In most animal species, body condition has a fundamental role in fitness. In males, sexual selection generally favors larger body size or greater weight. This may result in males with better condition performing more vigorous courtships, and biasing female preferences. The effects of body condition on mating performance have been extensively studie...

Within arachnids, genital plugs are morphologically diverse, and they can be formed by male, female or be a contribution of both sexes. Although several species of scorpions with genital plugs are known, the physiological effects on the female after being plugged have not been well studied yet. This work compares three scorpion species, two with ge...

Sexual selection is the responsible force for the evolution and maintenance of genital diversity and function. This is the case for example, of genital movements performed by males during mating and copulation duration. Spiders perform ritualized copulations whereby males carry out different types of movements using their pedipalps with varying dur...

Animals may build refuges to avoid predation, to communicate, to mate, and to protect against extreme temperatures, among other factors. Allocosa senex is a wolf spider that constructs burrows in the coastal sand dunes of South America. The distribution of A. senex includes beaches with different granulometry, which could affect burrow characterist...

Spiders have long been noted as classic examples of sexual behavior among arachnids, including extreme sexual dimorphism in some groups, and behavioral adaptations to diverse mating patterns. In recent decades, studies on the biology of Neotropical spiders have offered novel information on processes related to reproductive biology, including sexual...

Sperm competition influences the evolution of many reproductive traits such as gonads, sperm or genitalia. Many sperm competition analyses concentrate in testes and ejaculates. Among arachnids, scorpions constitute an intriguing taxon for examining sperm production and usage. For example, in the family Bothriuridae the females of Timogenes elegans...

Courtship and mating behavior generally evolve rapidly in diverging populations and species. The adaptation to different environments may cause behavioral divergence in characteristics involved in mate choice. Our objective in this study was to compare the sexual behavior of two distant populations of the scorpion Bothriurus bonariensis. This speci...

Arthropod silk is among the most remarkable materials produced by animals, and is diverse in chemical composition and strand morphology. Different types of silk are produced by different spinning processes, and spiders show the greatest diversity in both. Extremely flattened silk strands with exceptional properties are spun by recluse spiders (Loxo...

Mating partners need to recognize, assess each other, and exchange information through behavioral events that occur before, during, and after mating. Sexual signals, as well as life history traits, are influenced by selective pressures and environmental factors that can vary across distant geographical areas. Allocosa senex is a sand-dwelling wolf...

Mating partners need to recognize, assess each other, and exchange information through behavioral events that occur before, during, and after mating. Sexual signals, as well as life history traits, are influenced by selective pressures and environmental factors that can vary across distant geographical areas. Allocosa senex is a sand-dwelling wolf...

Many species face a trade-off between additional mating opportunities and the offspring benefits (viability, quality) provided by parental care. Female Holocnemus pluchei spiders must abandon their egg-sac, which they otherwise carry with their chelicerae, to copulate. This may involve risks for the offspring, such as predation and fungal infection...

Ricinuleids are considered one of the most enigmatic and neglected arachnid orders. The low diversity and poor local abundance of several species, makes the study of most aspects related to biology and behavior of this group very difficult. Most of the current knowledge related to ricinuleid biology relies on anecdotal observations. So far, no publ...

Differences in sexual signals among species are common, and may influence mate recognition and reproductive isolation. In scorpions, behavioural mechanisms and other sexual signals involved in mate selection and reproductive isolation have been scarcely studied. In this paper, we compare different male sexual signals between two distant populations...

Constructing webs for survival is rare in wolf spiders. However, some species, postulated as basal in the family, live in funnel-webs. Aglaoctenus lagotis (Holmberg 1876), a South American lycosid, lives permanently in webs. It is virtually unknown how web construction occurs for this species and the few other lycosid weavers. Also, costs associate...

Allocosa brasiliensis is a sand-dwelling wolf spider that constructs burrows along the coasts of rivers, lakes, and the Atlantic Ocean in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. This species shows a reversal in typical sex roles in spiders: females wander searching for males and initiate courtship, while both females and males are selective when taking mat...

In nuptial gift-giving species females sometimes select their potential mates based on the presence and size of the gift. But in some species, such as the Neotropical polyandrous spider Paratrechalea ornate male gifts vary in quality, from nutritive to worthless, and this male strategy can be in conflict with female nutritional benefits. In this sp...

This timely book revisits cryptic female choice in arthropods, gathering detailed contributions from around the world to address key behavioral, ecological and evolutionary questions. The reader will find a critical summary of major breakthroughs in taxon-oriented chapters that offer many new perspectives and cases to explore and in many cases unpu...

From Book: CRYPTIC FEMALE CHOICE IN ARTHROPODS. Patterns, Mechanisms and Prospects

From Book: CRYPTIC FEMALE CHOICE IN ARTHROPODS. Patterns, Mechanisms and Prospects

Cryptic female choice (CFC) in spiders may involve several mechanisms to bias paternity including early termination of copulation, remating likelihood, and sperm dumping . In Pholcidae , these mechanisms seem to be very common and will be examined in the present chapter. In the Pholcidae Physocyclus globosus , sperm dumping involves an active role...

Box plots of the analyses of the mounts: a) median number of palpal insertions per mount, b) median number of ejaculations per mount, c) median number of female body shaking per mount.

Aglaoctenus lagotis (Lycosidae: Sosippinae) is a spider that, in contrast to the predominant wandering habit of the family, constructs funnel webs. The species is widely distributed throughout the Neotropics and is credited with high levels of intraspecific variation. Here, we evaluate whether reproductive isolating barriers operate between some po...

The ability of a genotype to control the stable development of a phenotype under different environmental conditions may explain the level of developmental instability. An indicator to developmental instability is Fluctuating Asymmetry. Traits under pressures of sexual selection exhibit greater values of asymmetry that others. These traits have more...

INTRODUCCIÓN: Los escorpiones son arácnidos solitarios activos generalmente en verano. Urophonius brachycentrus es un escorpión de la familia Bothriuridae con actividad de superficie de mayo a septiembre (Maury, 1969) poco estudiado debido a sus hábitos invernales (Acosta, 1988). Encontrar hembras disponibles por parte de los machos no es sencillo,...

Comparisons of phenological patterns among populations within a species are uncommon in arachnids. Aglaoctenus lagotis is a wolf spider that lives in funnel-webs across South America. The aim of this study was to describe the phenological patterns of two distant populations of A. lagotis (central Argentina, CA, and southern Uruguay, SU). Individual...

There is strong evidence that polyandrous taxa have evolved relatively larger testes than monogamous relatives. Sperm size may either increase or decrease across species with the risk or intensity of sperm competition. Scorpions represent an ancient direct mode with spermatophore-mediated sperm transfer and are particularly well suited for studies...

Science is a changing system, in which many paradigms currently accepted were considered inadequate in the past. Similarly, it is accepted that well-established explanations can be strongly modified in the near future. Many fields in evolutionary biology, such as animal behavior and sexual selection, are good examples of such change. Robust explana...

Generally, sexual repertoire within a species is conserved, but frequencies of occurrence of sexual behavioral acts often vary, and wide geographic distributions may favor these variations. Aglaoctenus lagotis is distributed along South America and belongs to Sosippinae, a subfamily of wolf spiders that builds funnel webs. Previous reports, based o...

Sexual selection may operate on pre-copulatory, copulatory, and post-copulatory traits. An example of a copulatory target of sexual selection is the genitalic movements a male performs during copulation. These movements may function either to prevent sperm competition or to influence a female's fertilization decision. Here we investigated how copul...

When host organisms mount an immune response, they incur energetic costs. Theory predicts that these costs result in trade-offs between investment in life history traits (such as growth and reproduction) and investment in immune response. Recent empirical work investigating whether immune ability is impaired during sexual activity in invertebrates...

Diversification of morphological characteristics among geographically separated populations is particularly important in understanding evolutionary processes and is considered the early stage of allopatric speciation. In the present study, we investigated geographic variation in scorpion populations of Bothriurus bonariensis (Koch 1842). Our princi...

The immune response is a costly trait as investment in immunity is frequently traded off against life history components. In insects, for example, experimental tests have provided evidence that oviposition and copulatory activities impair immune ability in the form of encapsulation ability. Here such tests are replicated by using four zygopteran sp...