| repeated copulation and sperm precedence: paternity assurance for a male brooding water bug. | male giant water bugs (abedus herberti hidalgo) brood eggs attached to their backs by their mates. brooders risk being "cuckolded" because females store sperm from previous matings. males always copulate with females prior to receiving their eggs and mate repeatedly during oviposition. experiments with a genetic marker reveal almost complete sperm precedence for the last male to mate with a female. the male's behavior therefore assures his paternity of the eggs he broods. | 1979 | 17795564 |
| pregnanes from defensive glands of a belostomatid bug. | the aquatic bug abedus herberti (hemiptera: belostomatidae) secretes a mixture containing four pregnanes (desoxycorticosterone (i), pregnenolone (ii), progesterone (iii), and 3 alpha-hydroxy-pregn-5-en-20-one (iv)) from its cephalic glands. pregnanes had previously been characterized from the defensive glands of aquatic beetles (dytiscidae) and shown to be deterrent to fish. it may be specifically under predation pressure from fish that a. herberti and dytiscidae evolved their comparable defense ... | 1993 | 8440354 |
| respiratory morphology of the abedus herberti hidalgo egg chorion (hemiptera: belostomatidae). | although giant water bugs (hemiptera: belostomatidae) are large, aquatic insects known for their obligate paternal egg brooding behaviors, little research has focused on the structure of their eggs. the respiratory requirements of developing embryos likely created selection for brooding, so a thorough understanding of the respiratory morphology of belostomatid eggs could help explain how brooding behaviors facilitate embryonic gas exchange. this study used scanning electron microscopy to documen ... | 2011 | 21472766 |
| 17 novel polymorphic microsatellite markers for the giant water bug, abedus herberti (belostomatidae). | the giant water bug (abedus herberti) is a large flightless insect that is a keystone predator in aridland aquatic habitats. extended droughts, possibly due to climate change and groundwater pumping, are causing once-perennial aquatic habitats to dry, resulting in serious conservation concern for some populations. a. herberti also exhibits exclusive male parental care, which has made it a model organism for studying mating systems evolution. here we describe 17 novel polymorphic microsatellite l ... | 2012 | 24077753 |
| dispersal ability and habitat requirements determine landscape-level genetic patterns in desert aquatic insects. | species occupying the same geographic range can exhibit remarkably different population structures across the landscape, ranging from highly diversified to panmictic. given limitations on collecting population-level data for large numbers of species, ecologists seek to identify proximate organismal traits-such as dispersal ability, habitat preference and life history-that are strong predictors of realized population structure. we examined how dispersal ability and habitat structure affect the re ... | 2015 | 25402260 |