From deer antlers to crab claws, weapons are some of the most elaborate and enormous structures in the animal kingdom. Within a species, weapon size generally increases with the size and condition of an individual, and those with larger weapons are usually better at fending off more diminutive competitors.

Although it may seem desirable for all individuals to have large weapons, size varies greatly within a species. The ‘handicap principle’ proposes that the cost of bearing a weapon dictates the variation in weapon size. Smaller or less fit individuals pay more for weapons than larger or fitter animals, so smaller individuals tend to grow smaller weapons. Although popular, only a handful of studies have demonstrated experimental evidence that supports this theory.

To test the handicap principle, Dinh and Patek studied a group of crustaceans known as snapping shrimp. Each shrimp has one enlarged claw that it uses as a weapon to fire imploding vapor bubbles at opponents during fights. Larger snapping shrimp have bigger enlarged claws and tend to win more contests. Males also have larger weapons than females, and this sex difference is amplified during the breeding season.

Dinh and Patek studied weapon size in several species of snapping shrimp. Measurements showed that after controlling for body size, individuals with larger weapons had smaller abdomens, suggesting there is a tradeoff between weapon size and abdomen size. Furthermore, small males exhibited the steepest tradeoff, in line with the handicap principle.

Snapping shrimp also showed sex-specific costs and benefits. After controlling for body size, females with larger weapons produced fewer and smaller eggs, while males with larger weapons were more likely to be paired with females and generally paired with larger females. This suggests that weapons are particularly burdensome to female shrimp and particularly beneficial to males, especially during the breeding season.

These findings provide elusive evidence for the handicap principle and extend the theory to explain sex and seasonal differences in the size of snapping shrimp weapons. More broadly, the findings highlight the value of studying both male and female animal weapons when, historically, the focus has been on male weaponry.

Weapons, ornaments, and other secondary sexual traits often scale with the trait-bearer’s quality. Larger weapons can better deter or damage competitors, and more intense ornaments can better attract mates. By first approximation, one might expect that all individuals should express these traits to arbitrarily high magnitudes because greater expression yields fitness benefits. However, fitness costs and physical limitations ensure that traits are expressed honestly instead of arbitrarily (reviewed in Searcy and Nowicki, 2005). Despite decades of research, the costs that maintain reliable scaling relationships remain hotly debated.

One hypothesis called the handicap principle suggests that sexual traits are costly, and these costs ensure that trait expression is not arbitrary. Costly traits lower fitness by reducing survival (Kotiaho et al., 1998; Moller and de Lope, 1994; Mappes et al., 1996) or reproduction (Cavender et al., 2021; Joseph et al., 2018; Moczek and Nijhout, 2004; Somjee et al., 2018). Individuals should therefore express traits at a level that maximizes their benefits relative to their unit of cost (Grafen, 1990a; Grafen, 1990b; Nur and Hasson, 1984; Zahavi, 1977). For example, the handicap principle posits that sexually selected traits scale with quality because low-quality individuals pay more for, or benefit less from, costly traits compared to high-quality individuals. These differential costs set the optimal trait expression at a lower value for lower-quality individuals compared to higher-quality ones (Grafen, 1990a; Grafen, 1990b; Nur and Hasson, 1984; Zahavi, 1977). Even though this is a widely accepted explanation for the honest scaling of sexual traits, empirical evidence is scarce (Kotiaho, 2001; Penn and Számadó, 2020).

In addition to scaling relationships, costly traits can also differ depending on sex and season. For example, some secondary sexual traits are expressed in both sexes but at greater magnitudes in males than females (Heuring and Hughes, 2019; Nolazco et al., 2022). Moreover, costly traits might be expressed more intensely during the breeding season compared to the nonbreeding season, such as the annual shedding and regeneration of deer antlers (Brockes et al., 2004; Clements et al., 2010; Price et al., 2005). Snapping shrimp offer a particularly tractable system with which to test these classic questions about scaling, sex, and seasonality in the expression of costly traits.

Snapping shrimp live in size-assortative male-female pairs. Both males and females in the pair defend territory, maintain shelter, and forage (Hughes et al., 2014; Mathews, 2002a). Size-matched pairs form via intraspecific contests and intersexual mate choice, but the exact dynamics of pair formation differ depending on the species (Heuring and Hughes, 2020; Rahman, 2002; Rahman et al., 2004). The eggs in a female’s clutch are sired predominantly by the male in the size-matched pair; in other words, extra-pair paternity is rare (Mathews, 2007). Furthermore, egg clutch size is a function of female body length, while all reproductively active males can fertilize even the most bountiful of egg clutches (Knowlton, 1980). Female snapping shrimp are only reproductively receptive for several hours after each molt, which occurs once every 16–20 days (Govind et al., 1986; Knowlton, 1980; Mathews, 2002b; Rahman et al., 2003). Meanwhile, males are not limited to this molt-related breeding cycle. The estimated longevity for snapping shrimp ranges from 13 to 16 months (Costa-Souza et al., 2018; Mossolin et al., 2006).

Individuals of both sexes bear one enlarged claw that they use as weapon during fights with same-sex conspecifics (Nolan and Salmon, 1970). They assess weapons as visual signals (Hughes, 1996) and use them as armament to injure or damage opponents (Dinh et al., 2020; Dinh and Patek, 2023; Kingston et al., 2022). Snapping shrimp use latch-mediated spring actuation to produce powerful strikes (Kaji et al., 2018; Longo et al., 2019; Longo et al., 2023; Patek and Longo, 2018). They cock their claws open and use muscles to load an elastic mechanism comprised of the flexing exoskeleton and stretching apodemes (Longo et al., 2023). They unlatch the claw to quickly release elastic energy, driving the dactyl shut in as little time as 0.36 milliseconds (Dinh and Patek, 2023). Upon closure, a tooth-shaped protrusion in the dactyl inserts into a cavity in the propodus, which generates a high-velocity water jet that vaporizes the trailing region of water. This vapor bubble, known as a cavitation bubble, collapses and produces pressures that are audible to the human ear as a ‘snap’ (Kaji et al., 2018; Lohse et al., 2001; Versluis et al., 2000). Snapping shrimp fire snaps at opponents during contests (Dinh et al., 2020; Dinh and Patek, 2023; Nolan and Salmon, 1970). The pressure of the cavitation bubble collapse can cause neurotrauma to the opponent, so snapping shrimp have evolved shock-absorbing helmets called orbital hoods to dampen the blows (Kingston et al., 2022).

Individuals with larger weapons produce longer-lasting cavitation bubbles, greater pressures, and have greater offensive capacity (Dinh and Patek, 2023). They also tend to win contests (Dinh et al., 2020; Dinh and Patek, 2023). Yet, snapping shrimp do not grow weapons to arbitrary sizes. Instead, they vary along three axes: (1) larger individuals have larger weapons, (2) at any given body size, males have larger weapons than females, and (3) the sex difference amplifies during the summer breeding season (Heuring and Hughes, 2019). Therefore, the costs and benefits of weapon size can be examined across these three axes: body size, sex, and breeding season.

We test if snapping shrimp face tradeoffs that scale with the condition as predicted by the handicap principle. Then, we test the hypothesis that sex and seasonal differences in weaponry arise from sex-specific costs and benefits in alpheid snapping shrimp. We did not measure fitness and, therefore, refrain from using the term ‘costs’ when referring to our data. Instead, we use the term expenditure to represent tradeoffs that could cascade to fitness costs (Kotiaho, 2001).

Evolutionary theory suggests that individuals express costly traits like weapons and ornaments at an optimal magnitude that maximizes the cost-benefit difference. Because individuals differ in the costs they pay and the benefits they reap, trait expression varies in systematic and predictable ways across the population (Grafen, 1990a; Grafen, 1990b; Nur and Hasson, 1984; Zahavi, 1977). We found empirical evidence for size-dependent expenditures that could explain reliable scaling of trait expression: The smallest snapping shrimp exhibited the steepest morphological and reproductive tradeoffs. Moreover, we applied the same logic — that costs and benefits differ between individuals and lead to different optimal trait expressions — to explain sex differences in weaponry. Large weaponry is especially burdensome to females which suffer reproductive tradeoffs. Meanwhile, large weaponry benefits males by increasing the probability of being paired and the relative rostrum-to-telson length of their pair mate. These sex-specific implications of weapon investment on reproduction and pairing are vital to fitness because female egg production is the primary determinant of fecundity (Knowlton, 1980). Males can boost fitness by pairing with larger females, and females sacrifice fitness by reducing investment into eggs. These sex-specific tradeoffs and benefits can therefore explain why females have smaller proportional weapon sizes compared to males, why this sex difference amplifies during the breeding season, and why female weapon scaling slopes become more shallow during the breeding season when egg production and pairing are at a premium.

For both males and females, individuals with larger weapons had smaller abdomens (Figure 2). This was true in all three species of snapping shrimp that we tested. Similar resource allocation tradeoffs between body parts have been shown in other species. For example, several species of dung beetles face tradeoffs between their horns and nearby morphologies such as their eyes, wings, and antennae (Emlen, 2001), and reindeer face tradeoffs between antler length and body mass (Melnycky et al., 2013). Critically, in our study, we moved beyond simply identifying a tradeoff and demonstrated that different individuals experience tradeoffs to different extents. Specifically, in male Alpheus heterochaelis, smaller males exhibited a steeper tradeoff than larger males, indicating a size-dependent expenditure of weaponry (Figure 3).

The proportion of the claw made of muscle decreases as the weapon residual increases (Dinh, 2022). Therefore, we tested whether weapon residuals were negatively correlated with average angular velocity in the snapping claw, cavitation bubble duration, and snap pressure. We expected weapon residuals to affect these metrics because in other crustaceans, weapon residuals and muscle mass affect weapon function. For example, in some fiddler crabs, regenerated claws never fully recover the muscle mass of the original ones and have reduced pinching force (Lailvaux et al., 2009). Similarly, in the same species of fiddler crabs, as weapon residuals increase, pinching force does, too (Lailvaux et al., 2009). Surprisingly, in our analysis of snapping shrimp, weapon residuals were not correlated with any of the measured snap parameters.

The expenditures and benefits of growing a large weapon also differed by sex. For ovigerous A. heterochaelis females, greater weapon size led to lower egg counts, smaller average egg volume, and lower egg clutch volume (Figure 4). In males, tradeoffs between primary reproductive traits and weapons are widespread. For example, male horned scarab beetles (Onthophagus spp.) experience tradeoffs between their horns and genitalia, and this tradeoff are most pronounced just as larvae are about to enter their prepupal stage (Moczek and Nijhout, 2004; Simmons and Emlen, 2006). Similar tradeoffs arise in other insects like coreids (Miller et al., 2019; Somjee et al., 2018). These tradeoffs are evident in phylogenetic comparative analyses. Across horned scarab beetle species, for example, those with more positively allometric horn slopes have more negatively allometric testes slopes (Simmons and Emlen, 2006). Similarly, cetacean species that invest more in sexually dimorphic traits (e.g. narwhal tusks) invest less in testes mass (Dines et al., 2015), howler monkeys that have greater hyoid volume have smaller testes mass (Dunn et al., 2015), and dobsonflies that have enlarged mandibular weapons invest less into nuptial gifts (Liu et al., 2015). Although weapon-reproduction tradeoffs are commonly identified across taxa, the existing studies rarely identify analogous tradeoffs in females, and they rarely, if ever, test for size- or condition-dependence of tradeoffs. Our findings that female snapping shrimp face weapon-reproduction tradeoffs and those reproductive expenditures were size-dependent provide valuable nuances to the existing literature.

In addition, we showed that male A. heterochaelis benefited by investing in weaponry through pairing, whereas females did not. In males, weapon residuals were positively correlated with the probability of being paired and the relative body length of their pair mates (Figure 6). Females did not exhibit either of these benefits. Male-specific benefits could, therefore, contribute to sex differences in weapon investment.

Egg production is particularly salient to female snapping shrimp because they bear the entire energetic burden of egg production (Knowlton, 1980). Likewise, there is an incentive for males to pair with large and fecund females. Therefore, growing a large weapon is particularly burdensome to females and particularly beneficial for males. These reproductive expenditures and benefits could therefore explain why males have larger proportional weapon sizes than females.

The sex-specific expenditures and benefits are also consistent with seasonal oscillations in weaponry. A. heterochaelis males had greater weapon residuals during the breeding season compared to the non-breeding season, whereas female weapon residuals remained consistent throughout the year (Figure 7). Furthermore, the scaling slope of the snapping claw became more shallow during the breeding season for females. By contrast, males did not show a significant seasonal change in scaling slope, but across the range of body sizes, snapping claw lengths increased during the breeding season (Figure 7). Concurrently, males had significantly lower abdomen residuals during the breeding season, whereas females exhibited a parallel but marginally nonsignificant decrease in abdomen residuals. Similar trends have been reported in A. angulosus, although in that species, females significantly reduce proportional abdomen sizes during the breeding season (Heuring and Hughes, 2019). We speculate that males shift investment from their abdomens into weapons during the breeding season because it increases their likelihood of being paired. Female snapping shrimp shift investment from abdomens to eggs, and they do not increase weapon size because they face tradeoffs between eggs and weapons.

Female weapon-egg tradeoffs are analogous to classic examples of male weapon-testes tradeoffs (Simmons et al., 2017; Simmons and Emlen, 2006). Still, female analogs of this phenomenon are rare (Miller et al., 2019). Most likely, the dearth of findings is simply due to insufficient studies of female weaponry. Sex biases in research, such as the misconception that only males fight and only females choose, are common (Haines et al., 2020; Pollo and Kasumovic, 2022; Tang-Martínez, 2016). For example, it is now accepted that female birdsong is widespread, but for centuries, historical research focused almost entirely on males that were presumed to be the only sex to compete for mates (Odom et al., 2014; Odom and Benedict, 2018; Riebel et al., 2019). Like birdsong, female secondary sexual traits, weapons, and competition are not uncommon, and they often serve signaling functions just as they do in males (Amundsen and Forsgren, 2001; LeBas, 2006; Nolazco et al., 2022; Nordeide, 2002; Watson and Simmons, 2010). Sex-inclusive research on the costs and benefits of these traits would not only redress long-standing omissions from the scientific literature, but comparisons between males and females would also provide empirical tools to understand how costs and benefits govern trait expression within a single species.

In snapping shrimp, large weaponry could have fitness benefits. For example, individuals of both sexes use weapons during contests over mates and territory (Dinh et al., 2020; Dinh and Patek, 2023; Hughes et al., 2014; Nolan and Salmon, 1970). Larger weapons produce greater pressure and, therefore, increase offensive capacity during contests (Dinh and Patek, 2023). Furthermore, male snapping shrimp with large weapons independent of body size use elevated levels of visual weapon displays, and that seems to affect rival assessment during contests (Hughes, 2000). It is also possible that large weaponry could be preferred in mate choice, although that has not been established firmly. In A. angulosus, females show a marginally non-significant preference for males with large claws independent of body size during the breeding season (Heuring and Hughes, 2020). Meanwhile, females prefer larger males in A. heterochaelis, although experiments have not tested whether weapon size independent of body size affects mate choice in this species (Rahman et al., 2004). Finally, large weaponry could also help snapping shrimp defend themselves against heterospecific intruders and predators. For example, the snapping shrimp Alpheus armatus defends its host anemone from fireworm predation using snaps, which can kill intruders (McCammon and Brooks, 2014). Anecdotal evidence suggests a similar symbiotic relationship between nest-defending A. heterochaelis mud crabs (Layman et al., 2003). If larger weapons are better equipped to fend off predators, then large weaponry could also boost fitness by preventing predation.

Ideally, we would be able to link each of the expenditures and benefits we identified here to a fitness cost (Kotiaho, 2001). There have been two systems where such a condition-dependent fitness cost has been demonstrated: in the substrate-borne signaling of wolf spiders (Hygrolycosa rubrofasciata) and in the ornamented tail feathers of barn swallows (Hirundo rustica). In wolf spiders, individuals that are fed high-quantity diets maintain steady body mass and drum at greater rates compared to those fed a low-rationed diet (Kotiaho, 2000). Females prefer to mate with males that drum at higher rates (Kotiaho et al., 1996). However, drumming is energetically demanding and, sometimes, lethal (Kotiaho, 2000; Mappes et al., 1996). Males fed high-volume diets are better able to sustain and survive these costs compared to males on low-volume diets (Kotiaho, 2000).

In barn swallows, females prefer to mate with males that have long marginal tail feathers (Møller, 1988; Møller, 1990; Møller, 1992). However, long tail feathers hinder the aerodynamics of flight: Individuals with experimentally lengthened tail feathers catch smaller, lower-quality dipteran prey and are more likely to die. Meanwhile, those with experimentally shortened tail feathers catch larger, higher quality dipteran prey and were more likely to survive (Moller and de Lope, 1994). Individuals with naturally long tail feathers were best able to cope with experimental tail elongation, whereas those with naturally short tail feathers reaped the greatest survival boost from tail shortening, suggesting that the cost of ornamented tail feathers disproportionately burdens males with naturally short tail feathers (Moller and de Lope, 1994).

It is not feasible to quantify such fitness costs in natural observations of snapping shrimp. They are prolific breeders, cryptic, and difficult to mark and recapture because they molt each month. The egg production tradeoffs are as close to a direct fitness cost as we could identify. Morphological tradeoffs, on the other hand, are more distant from fitness costs. However, it is a reasonable possibility that abdomen tradeoffs impact survival. For example, the primary mode of predator escape in many decapod crustaceans is the tailflip, during which individuals contract their abdomen to propel themselves backward (Wiersma, 1947). Tailflip velocity and acceleration in crayfish increase with abdomen length (Hunyadi et al., 2020). If the same holds in snapping shrimp, then the abdomen tradeoff that we found here could influence survival. However, future work is required to reach a definitive answer.

Some expenditures we documented did not differ with size; however, the overall fitness cost might still be size-dependent. For example, smaller females did not exhibit a weapon size tradeoff with the total number of eggs they produced. Even though the scaling slopes were invariant across the size range, small individuals might suffer a greater relative reduction in eggs and therefore a greater reduction in relative fitness. For example, reducing a 100-egg clutch by 10 would incur a 10% decrease, but reducing a 200-egg clutch by 10 would incur a 5%decrease. Compared to large and fecund individuals, then, smaller individuals might suffer a greater reduction in relative fitness than larger individuals despite a similar absolute tradeoff in egg production.

Critically, our findings rely entirely on observational data, and therefore, we cannot infer causation. In other taxa, it is possible to experimentally manipulate weapons to prevent them from developing. In beetles, for example, researchers can ablate imaginal disklike tissue in larvae before they form into horns (Moczek and Nijhout, 2004; Simmons and Emlen, 2006), and in coreid insects, researchers can induce permanent autotomy of hind-leg weapons (Joseph et al., 2018; Miller et al., 2019; Somjee et al., 2018). However, permanent manipulation of weaponry is not as straightforward in snapping shrimp as it is in terminally molting insects. Snapping shrimp molt every 16–20 days, and after autotomy, they regenerate their weapons over a series of molts. Specifically, snapping shrimp regenerate a new non-snapping claw at the site of autotomy and transform the contralateral claw into a snapping claw (Cooney et al., 2017; Govind et al., 1986; Pereira et al., 2014). It is not clear how weapon expenditures would change during regeneration; one might expect some expenditures, like maintenance, could decrease with a smaller, recovering claw, but other expenditures, like growth, could increase as the weapon grows and transforms (Akhter et al., 2015; Bywater et al., 2014; Dinh, 2022; Pereira et al., 2014; Read and Govind, 1991). Interestingly, in rare cases, wild-caught snapping shrimp can bear two snapping claws. This unusual arrangement can be permanently induced in the lab by removing the dactyl from a claw as it is transforming from a non-snapping claw to a snapping claw (Read and Govind, 1997). In future experiments, it would be interesting to test if this manipulation decreases investment into traits like abdomens and egg production.

Our methods also could not account for the genetic background of individuals, which could influence their weapon investment. Future experiments could use a siblings-based approach to control for these factors. Prior research has relied on breeding experiments, for example, to identify weapon-testes tradeoffs in horned scarab beetles (O. taurus) (Moczek and Nijhout, 2004) and to test the effects of diet on weapon development in the dung beetle Onthophagus acuminatus (Emlen, 1997). Indeed, it is possible to rear field-collected snapping shrimp eggs in captivity, though we have not been successful at inducing mating in the lab (Harrison and Patek, 2023). In the future, it would be interesting to use a siblings-based design with the experimental manipulations described above to test experimentally for resource allocation tradeoffs.

Despite the challenges of observational inference, the statistical approach of testing for residual-based tradeoffs pinpoints patterns that are consistent with resource allocation tradeoffs. The morphologies implicated in these trends are valuable candidates for future experiments as described above. Furthermore, the robust datasets that we are able to collect from field observations allowed us to test for size-dependence of these tradeoffs — a critical assumption of the handicap principle that has largely been omitted from such experiments. Future research could apply the statistical framework we lay out here to test for size dependence in tradeoffs in lab-based experiments as well.

Empirical evidence of fitness costs is elusive because fitness manifests from a mosaic of subtle expenditures. Some of these expenditures, like reproduction, are obviously correlated to fitness, while others might have subtle yet meaningful effects. There is likely a smorgasbord of expenditures that we did not test for here, some of which are undetectable in purely observational work. For example, in other crustaceans, weapons hinder locomotion and reduce survival during predator escape (Hunyadi et al., 2020). These expenditures need to be identified through future experiments. Other expenditures might not be tractable through morphology, but through social interactions. In the paper wasp Polistes dominulus, for example, body size is correlated with pigment deposition in facial masks. Poor-condition wasps with facemasks manipulated to appear formidable experienced social costs via conspecific aggression (Tibbetts and Dale, 2004). The observational work we present here is a starting point to identify the fitness consequences of large weaponry. We encourage observations of behavior in naturalistic conditions and experiments that manipulate sexual traits to paint the entire mosaic of fitness-relevant expenditures of weaponry.

Data, metadata, and code are available on Dryad: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.qz612jmkf.

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Author details

1. Jason P Dinh

   Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, United States

   Contribution

   Conceptualization, Data curation, Software, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Visualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Project administration, Writing – review and editing

   For correspondence

   jasonpdinh@gmail.com

   Competing interests

   No competing interests declared

   "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-6471-9047

2. SN Patek

   Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, United States

   Contribution

   Resources, Supervision, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Writing – review and editing

   Competing interests

   No competing interests declared

   "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-9738-882X

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