Variable Iteroparity as a Life‐history Tactic in the Pitcher‐plant Mosquito Wyeomyia Smithii

Larval density, but not geographic origin (Florida to Ontario), affected female fecundity among 12 populations of W. smithii, regardless of whether or not they had opportunity to take blood meals. Neither the degree of iteroparity nor male longevity varied with density or geographic region of origin, but longevity was greater among southern, potentially blood-feeding females, than among northern, nonbiting females. Among the southern females, iteroparity, but not fecundity, increased with opportunity to take blood meals. Specifically, there was no increase in fecundity among females whose larvae were nutritionally deprived relative to females whose larvae were well fed. I interpret the retention of hematophagy and facultatively augmented iteroparity in W. smithii as a means for females developing under predictably impoverished but irregularly opportunistic conditions to reallocate and temporally diversify their reproductive effort.