ABSTRACT Scorpions often experience food shortages, yet information on their baseline nutritional input is lacking. In many life histories, there is a trade-off between adult size and development time that is interrelated with food availability. We present precise data on the influence of two different feeding regimes that affect development in the buthid scorpion Tityus neibae. The results indicate a strong relationship between the treatment group, sex, morphometrics and life stages. The different diet inputs had no influence on the embryonic development or the litter size but had a major effect on the postembryonic development time and on the life stage when individuals reached maturity. No females or males reached maturity by the 4th instar when fed every two weeks and only males that were fed weekly were able to reach maturity by the 4th. Thus, a trade-off in T. neibae males is apparent, since they can reach maturity earlier in life, resulting in an overall smaller body size that may reduce the risk of predation. By contrast, females may have been selected to reach full development with an overall larger body size that results in an increase in the fitness, the number, or the size of the offspring.

中文翻译：

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由于蝎子 Tityus neibae 的不同喂养方式，成虫大小和发育时间之间的权衡

摘要蝎子经常经历食物短缺，但缺乏有关其基线营养输入的信息。在许多生活史中，成年体型和发育时间之间存在权衡，这与食物供应相关。我们提供了关于影响 buthid 蝎子 Tityus neibae 发育的两种不同喂养方式的影响的精确数据。结果表明治疗组、性别、形态测量学和生命阶段之间存在很强的相关性。不同的饮食投入对胚胎发育或窝产仔数没有影响，但对胚胎后发育时间和个体达到成熟的生命阶段有重大影响。每两周喂食一次时，雌性或雄性都不会在第 4 龄前成熟，只有每周喂食的雄性才能在第 4 龄前成熟。因此，T. neibae 雄性的权衡是显而易见的，因为它们可以在生命早期达到成熟，从而导致整体较小的体型，这可能会降低被捕食的风险。相比之下，可能已选择雌性以达到完全发育的整体体型更大，从而导致后代的健康、数量或大小增加。