No postcopulatory response to inbreeding by male crickets

Previous studies of the cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus have shown a paternity bias towards non-sibling males. Although non-kin-biased paternity could represent a mechanism of postcopulatory inbreeding avoidance by females, evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) models of ejaculate evolution also predict that males should reduce their expenditure on the ejaculate when mating with their sisters. Here we provide a test of these models, finding that male crickets invest equally in matings with full-siblings, half-siblings and non-sibling females. The data suggest that in this species, males and females differ in their response to inbreeding.