EFFECT OF DELAYED MATING AND PROLONGED ENGORGEMENT ON THE REPRODUCTIVE FITNESS OF FEMALE AMBLYOMMA-LIMBATUM (ACARI, IXODIDAE) IN MARGINAL POPULATION-AREAS

Reptile ticks mate while females are attached to their host. Following mating, females engorge, detach and then lay their eggs. This study e xamines whether the time that females of the reptile tick Amblyomma li mbatum spend on hosts prior to mating and the time they take to engorg e on hosts after mating influence their reproductive fitness, as measu red by the number of viable eggs they produce. When compared with fema les that experienced no temperature-induced delay in mating, females a ttached for an initial period to hosts with body temperatures too low to induce mating had no decline in their reproductive fitness, once pr ovided with suitable temperatures for mating. However, on hosts with s uitable body temperatures for mating, female ticks that took longer to mate, took longer to engorge and had reduced reproductive fitness. In addition, females that spent more than 20 days feeding on hosts after mating had reduced reproductive fitness, irrespective of the time the y spent on hosts prior to mating compared with females with shorter fe eding periods. Thus, the time that A. limbatum females spent on hosts prior to mating and/or after mating has a significant bearing on the n umber viable progeny produced. The ecological implications of these re sults are discussed in relation to females colonizing marginal populat ion areas at the edge of their distributional range.