Does Harassment by Unpaired Males Influence Egg-Laying Behavior in the Damselfly Enallagma Boreale?

In Chapter 1, I briefly discuss how sperm competition, optimality modeling, and insect oviposition relate to the research described in the second chapter of this dissertation.

In Chapter 2, I examine the influence of harassment by unpaired males on the relative amount of time female damselflies of the species Enallagma boreale (Selys) spent laying eggs at the surface and underwater.

If harassment is a cost to females, they should spend relatively more time underwater when disturbance rates are high.

To test this, I captured copulating pairs and moved them to an enclosure that surrounded a small pool containing vegetation for oviposition.

I varied the amount of harassment within the enclosure by altering the number of unpaired males and observed female oviposition behavior.

I found that the relationship between disturbance rate and the proportion of time spent underwater was weak, suggesting that harassment has little influence on oviposition behavior in this species.

However, the size of the pool or individual differences in response to harassment may have obscured the relationship between harassment and underwater oviposition.