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68 results for “female mate choice”
Mate choice in the brain: Species differ in how male traits 'turn on' gene expression in female brains
<p>Mate choice plays a fundamental role in speciation, yet we know little about the molecular mechanisms that underpin this crucial decision-making process. Stickleback fish differentially adapted to limnetic and benthic habitats are reproductively isolated and females of each species use different male traits to evaluate prospective partners and reject heterospecific males. Here, we integrate behavioral data from a mate choice experiment with gene expression profiles from the brains of females actively deciding whether to mate. We find substantial gene expression variation between limnetic and benthic females, regardless of behavioral context, suggesting general divergence in constitutive gene expression patterns, corresponding to their genetic differentiation. Intriguingly, female gene co-expression modules covary with male display traits but in opposing directions for sympatric populations of the two species, suggesting male displays elicit a dynamic genomic response that reflects known differences in female preferences. Furthermore, we confirm the role of numerous candidate genes previously implicated in female mate choice in other species, suggesting that evolutionary tinkering with these conserved molecular processes underlies divergent mate preferences and sexual isolation. Taken together, our study adds important new insights to our understanding of the molecular processes underlying female decision-making critical for generating sexual isolation and speciation.</p>
Figure 1 in Does Male Sexual Experience Influence Female Mate Choice and Reproduction in the Melon Fly (Diptera: Tephritidae)?
Figure 1. (A) Number of eggs laid per female per week and (B) proportion of hatched eggs per week for Zeugodacus cucurbitae females mated to virgin or non-virgin (thrice-mated) males. Symbols represent averages (+ 1 SE) over 8 cages per male type.
Female mate choice in an arachnid with exclusive paternal care: males in good condition have higher mating success, but only if they can advertise it
<p><strong>Female mate choice in an arachnid with exclusive paternal care: males in good condition have higher mating success, but only if they can advertise it</strong></p> <p>This repository contains the .csv files used for the statistical analyses of the study "Female mate choice in an arachnid with exclusive paternal care: males in good condition have higher mating success, but only if they can advertise it". In case of questions, please email Laís A. Grossel: <a href="mailto:laisgrossel@gmail.com">laisgrossel@gmail.com</a></p> <p><strong>Data files and structure</strong></p> <p>We have files for verifying the manipulation of males' body condition and a file to assess males' mating success.</p> <p>With the file <strong>morphometry.csv</strong> we determined the body density of all males included in our experiment, using the formula of the ellipsoid: Volume = 4/3 * π * BL/2 * BW/2 * BH/2. In this file, we have the headers:</p> <ul> <li><strong>maleID:</strong> identity of manipulated males</li> <li><strong>visit:</strong> visits to the field, with 7 levels</li> <li><strong>manipulation:</strong> the moment of taking the measures, with 2 levels: before manipulation and after manipulation</li> <li><strong>diet:</strong> diet experimental group, with 2 levels: good and poor</li> <li><strong>body_length:</strong> in mm</li> <li><strong>body_width:</strong> in mm</li> <li><strong>body_height:</strong> in mm</li> <li><strong>body_mass:</strong> to the nearest 0.001 g</li> </ul> <p>With the file <strong>diet_manipulation.csv</strong> we compared the body density of parental males before and after manipulation within each experimental group. In this file, we have the headers:</p> <ul> <li><strong>maleID:</strong> identity of manipulated males</li> <li><strong>diet:</strong> diet experimental group, with 2 levels: good and poor</li> <li><strong>density_before:</strong> body density before manipulation of diet</li> <li><strong>density_after:</strong> body density after manipulation of diet</li> </ul> <p>With the file <strong>density_difference.csv</strong> we compared the body density between males of the two experimental groups after manipulation. In this file, we have the headers:</p> <ul> <li><strong>diet:</strong> diet experimental group, with 2 levels: good and poor</li> <li><strong>body_density:</strong> after manipulation, in g/mm3</li> </ul> <p>With the file <strong>clutches.csv</strong> we analysed the mating success of the males in the experimental groups after manipulation. In this file, we have the headers:</p> <ul> <li><strong>maleID:</strong> identity of manipulated males</li> <li><strong>visit:</strong> visits to the field, with 7 levels</li> <li><strong>diet:</strong> diet experimental group, with 2 levels: good and poor</li> <li><strong>glands:</strong> glands experimental group, with 2 levels: blocked and unblocked</li> <li><strong>exp_group:</strong> experimental group combining the manipulation of diet and glands, with 4 levels: GCBG (good condition and blocked glands), GCUG (good condition and unblocked glands), PCBG (poor condition and blocked glands) and PCUB (poor condition and unblocked glands)</li> <li><strong>clutch:</strong> if the male received eggs from females 15 or 30 days after manipulation, with 2 levels: 0 if the male did not receive eggs and 1 if the male received eggs</li> <li><strong>eggs_number:</strong> number of eggs received from females 15 or 30 days after manipulation</li> </ul>
Data from: Show me you care: female mate choice based on egg attendance rather than male or territorial traits
Female mate choice is often based on male traits, including signals or behaviors, and/or the quality of a male's territory. In species with obligate paternal care, where care directly affects offspring survival, females may also base their mate choices on the quality of a sire's care. Here, we quantified male reproductive success in a natural population of the glassfrog Hyalinobatrachium cappellei, a species with male parental care, to determine the influence of territory quality, male traits, and paternal care behaviors on female mate choice. We found that attending males have a higher chance of gaining new clutches than non-attending males. Our results indicate that females do not select males based only on body condition, calling persistence, or territory traits. Instead, our findings support the hypothesis that females choose males based on care status. Indeed, males already attending a clutch were 70% more likely to obtain another clutch, and the time to acquire an additional clutch was significantly shorter. We also found that males adjust their parental care effort in response to genetic relatedness, by caring only for their own offspring; however, remaining close to unrelated clutches serves as a strategy to attract females and increase chances of successful mating. Thus, males that establish territories that already contain clutches benefit from the signal eggs provide to females.
Data from: Show me you care: female mate choice based on egg attendance rather than male or territorial traits
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Data from: Female chorus frogs delay mate choice under suboptimal environmental conditions
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Data from: Mate choice in the brain: Species differ in how male traits ‘turn on’ gene expression in female brains
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Sexual selection in wild populations of seed bugs: the role of size in pre-copulatory mate choice by females and males
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Data from: Female mate choice is a reproductive isolating barrier in Heliconius butterflies
In sexually reproducing organisms, speciation involves the evolution of reproductive isolating mechanisms that decrease gene flow. Premating reproductive isolation, often the result of mate choice, is a major obstacle to gene flow between species because it acts earlier in the life cycle than other isolating barriers. While female choice is often considered the default mode in animal species, research in the butterfly genus Heliconius, a frequent subject of speciation studies, has focused on male mate choice. We studied mate choice by H. cydno females by pairing them with either conspecific males or males of the closely related species H. pachinus. Significantly more intraspecific trials than interspecific trials resulted in mating. Because male courtship rates did not differ between the species when we excluded males that never courted, we attribute this difference to female choice. Females also performed more acceptance behaviours towards conspecific males. Premating isolation between these two species thus entails both male and female mate choice, and female choice may be an important factor in the origin of Heliconius species.
Personality affects female mate choice: frogs displaying more consistent bold behaviors are choosier
<p>Mate choice is an important cause of natural and sexual selection, and drives the evolution and elaboration of male ornaments. Yet mate choice decisions are often neither consistent nor uniform, and a range of factors have been identified to influence variation between and within individuals. A potential source of variation influencing preferences and/or choosiness is animal personality, i.e., repeatable among-individual differences in behaviors. Not only may individuals differ in average personality phenotype, but also vary in how consistently they display said personality. Distinguishing between personality and consistency is important because both aspects are potentially naturally selected traits that may yet influence how sexually selected ornaments are evaluated. Here we use a predator evasion assay to test whether there is variation in boldness among female gray treefrogs (<em>Hyla versicolor</em>), and then examine whether personality traits (spectrum of shy to bold) are correlated with choosiness for longer duration calls. We document substantial and repeatable between-individual variation in boldness, suggesting the presence of animal personality. Results also reveal that the consistency with which females expressed boldness is independent from average personality phenotype and that it is correlated with choosiness: more consistently bold females were choosier. </p>
Mating status affects female choice in Chloridea virescens
<p>Sexual selection in animals has been mostly studied in species in which males are signallers and females are choosers. However, in many species females are (also) signallers. In species with non-signalling females, virgin females are hypothesized to be less choosy than mated females, as virgins must mate to realize fitness and the number of available males is generally limited. Yet, when females signal to attract males, mate limitation can be overcome. We tested how virgin and mated females differ in their calling behaviour, mating latency, and in mate choice, using the tobacco budworm <em>Chloridea</em> (<em>Heliothis</em>) <em>virescens</em> as an example for a species in which females are not only choosers but also signallers. We found that virgin females signalled longer than mated females, but virgin and mated signalling females were equally ready to mate, in contrast to non-signalling females. However, we found that virgin signalling females showed weaker mate preference than mated females, which can be explained by the fact that females increase their fitness with multiple matings. Mated females may thus further increase their fitness by more stringent mate selection. We conclude that signalling is a crucial aspect to consider when studying female mate choice, because signalling may affect the number of available mates to choose from.</p>
Data from: Female mate choice in wild Kenyan blue monkeys (Cercopithecus mitis)
<p>Female mate choice may drive sexual selection, but discerning whether female behaviors reflect the free expression of choice or responses to constraints can be difficult. We investigated the efficacy of female choice in wild blue monkeys using 10 years of behavioral and paternity data (2002-2011) encompassing 178 male-female dyads and 63 infants. Although blue monkeys live modally in one-male polygynous groups, where male-biased intersexual power is expected, females can access multiple potential mates during seasonal male influxes and occasional intergroup encounters. Additionally, extra-group males sire offspring. We examined the unsolicited proceptive behavior that females directed to males (corrected for male availability) to determine (1) if blue monkey females express mate choice by preferentially soliciting sexual interactions with certain males, (2) which males females prefer, and (3) if observed female mate preferences are successful in influencing paternity and infant survival. The two datasets included here allowed us to answer these questions. The first dataset provides information on the degree of preference a female in her conceptive period exhibited for each male that was present, the status of each male (resident or non-resident), and whether the female's most preferred male sired her offspring. The second dataset provides information on whether a female's parity, rank, or familiarity with her resident male influenced the likelihood of siring her offspring with her most preferred male (or with the resident male) and whether an infant was more likely to survive if sired by the male its mother most preferred.</p>
Data from: Cryptic male mate choice for high-quality females reduces male postcopulatory success in future matings
<p>Cryptic male mate choice occurs when males differentially allocate resources to females during or after copulation. When male resources are limited, males may benefit by strategically allocating more resources toward higher-quality females. In the fruit fly, <em>Drosophila melanogaster</em>, males mate for longer and may transfer more sperm and more seminal proteins when they mate with larger females compared to smaller females. It is unclear, however, whether this increased investment in large females has any impact on the males' later matings. We mated <em>D. melanogaster</em> males sequentially to females of large or small body size in all possible combinations to test whether cryptic male mate choice for large females is costly to the males' subsequent matings. Second matings were shorter for males compared to their first matings, but there were no differences in fecundity between females mated first or second by a male. Interestingly, male success at defensive sperm competition declined between his first and second matings only when his first mating had been with a large female. This suggests that the higher initial investment in large females reduced male postcopulatory success in their subsequent matings. Cryptic male mate choice may carry underappreciated costs to males that could limit their reproductive potential.</p>
Data from: Male size does not affect the strength of male mate choice for high-quality females in Drosophila melanogaster
<p class="MsoNormal">Theory predicts that the strength of male mate choice should vary depending on male quality when higher-quality males receive greater fitness benefits from being choosy. This pattern extends to differences in male body size, with larger males often having stronger pre- and post-copulatory preferences than smaller males.We sought to determine whether large males and small males differ in the strength (or direction) of their preference for large, high-fecundity females using the fruit fly, <em>Drosophila melanogaster</em>. We measured male courtship preferences and mating duration to show that male body size had no impact on the strength of male mate choice; all males, regardless of their size, had equally strong preferences for large females. To understand the selective pressures shaping male mate choice in males of different sizes, we also measured the fitness benefits associated with preferring large females for both large and small males. Male body size did not affect the benefits that males received: large and small males were equally successful at mating with large females, received the same direct fitness benefits from mating with large females, and showed similar competitive fertilization success with large females. These findings provide insight into why the strength of male mate choice was not affected by male body size in this system. Our study highlights the importance of evaluating the benefits and costs of male mate choice across multiple males to predict when differences in male mate choice should occur.</p>
Personality affects female mate choice: frogs displaying more consistent bold behaviors are choosier
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Data from: The effect of individual state on the strength of mate choice in females and males
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Mating status affects female choice in Chloridea virescens
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Data from: Male size does not affect the strength of male mate choice for high-quality females in Drosophila melanogaster
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Data from: Female mate choice in wild Kenyan blue monkeys (Cercopithecus mitis)
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Data from: Female mate choice is a reproductive isolating barrier in Heliconius butterflies
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