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58 results for “male mate choice”
Data from: Effects of past mating behavior versus past ejaculation on male mate choice and male attractiveness
<p>Past reproductive effort allows males to assess their ability to acquire mates, but it also consumes resources that can reduce their future competitive ability. Few studies have examined how a male's reproductive history affects his subsequent mate choice; and, to date, no study has determined the relative contribution of past mating behavior and past ejaculate production because these two forms of investment are naturally highly correlated. Here, we disentangled the relative effects of past mating behavior and past ejaculate production in male mosquitofish (<em>Gambusia holbrooki</em>) by experimentally preventing some males from ejaculating when trying to mate. We assessed the effect of mating behavior on mate choice by comparing males that had previously been with or without access to females and male rivals for 16 weeks; and assessed the effect of ejaculation on mate choice by comparing males that either could or could not ejaculate when they had access to females for 16 weeks. We compared (1) time females spent with each male, (2) total distance males swam, (3) total time males spent inspecting females, (4) proportion of time males spent with the solitary females in separate models, with age (week 8, week 16) and treatment of reproductive history ("naive male", "mating only male" and "mating and ejaculation males") as fixed factors. </p> <p>We showed that reproductive history did not affect male attractiveness, but it did affect male mate choice. Somewhat surprisingly, in two-choice trials males from all three treatments preferred females in the vicinity of a rival over solitary females. This preference was marginally stronger for males engaging in previous mating behavior but was unaffected by past ejaculate production. This is the first study to quantify the relative influence of pre- and post-copulatory reproductive investment on male mate choice.</p>
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: Remodeling male coercion and the evolution of sexual autonomy by mate choice
<p><span>Models of sexual conflict over mating, including conflict over indirect benefits of mate choice, have generally presumed that female resistance to male coercion must involve direct confrontation, which can lead to sexually antagonistic co-evolutionary arms-races. We built a quantitative model examining the largely ignored possibility that females may evolve new, additional mate preferences for new male traits that undermine male capacity to coerce. Thus, females may "remodel" the coercive capacity of the male phenotype in order to enhance their own sexual autonomy – a novel alternative mechanism by which females may avoid arms-races. We demonstrate that evolutionary "remodeling" is possible, in spite of costs to males, because females that prefer males with protective, autonomy-enhancing traits (traits correlated with lower coercion effectiveness) are likelier to gain indirect benefits of having attractive mates. Our analysis reveals new possibilities for the evolution of systems of sexual conflict over indirect benefits, showing that </span><span>autonomy-enhancing male traits </span><span>can act as a "public good," benefiting all females regardless of mating preferences, leading to oscillatory dynamics; and that preferences for more protective male traits will often be favored relative to preferences for less protective traits, potentially leading to an evolutionary "snowball" of expanding sexual autonomy.</span></p>
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: Effects of past mating behavior versus past ejaculation on male mate choice and male attractiveness
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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: Remodeling male coercion and the evolution of sexual autonomy by mate choice
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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>
Data from: the role of male quality in sequential mate choice: pregnancy replacement in small mammals?
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Quantitative variables related to color, territory, behavior, and morphology for male lesser prairie-chickens used in discrete choice models in mate choice study
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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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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: Indirect fitness benefits can reinforce the direct fitness benefits of male mate choice
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Data from: Cryptic male mate choice for high-quality females reduces male postcopulatory success in future matings
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No geographical differences in male mate choice in a widespread fish, Limia perugiae
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