DOI: 10.5061/dryad.hdr7sqvp9
title: Data from: Fake news? The impact of information mismatch in mating behaviour

description: Multiple cues are often used for mate choice in complex environments,
 potentially entailing mismatches between different sources of information.
 We address the consequences thereof for receivers using the spider mite
 Tetranychus urticae, in which virgin females are highly valuable mates
 compared to mated females, given first male sperm precedence. Accordingly,
 males prefer virgins and distinguish them using cues from the females
 and/or that are present on the substrate. Whereas the former are more
 reliable, the latter may allow for a faster or more long-distance
 response. However, there can be mismatched information between cues as
 females move and/or mate. Here, we tested the consequences thereof by
 exposing males to mated or virgin females on patches previously
 impregnated with cues deposited by females of either mating status. Male
 mating attempts were solely affected by substrate cues while female
 acceptance and the number of mating events were independently affected by
 both cues. Copulation duration, in contrast, depended mainly on the mating
 status of the female, with the number of copulations and the total time
 spent mating being intermediate in environments with mismatched
 information. Ultimately, male survival costs mirrored male investment in
 mating. These results suggest that, in environments with mismatched
 information, the substrate cues left by females are instrumental for males
 to find their mates, but they can also lead to males paying survival costs
 without the associated benefit of mating effectively, or suffering reduced
 costs at the expense of losing effective mating opportunities. The benefit
 of using multiple cues will then hinge upon the frequency of information
 mismatch, which itself should vary with the dynamics of populations.
description: # Title of Dataset: Fake news? The impact of information mismatch in
 mating behaviour --- With this data, we study the mating behaviour of male
 and female two-spotted spider mites (Tetranychus urticae) in environments
 with two type of cues signalling female mating status: cues previously
 left in the substrate by females and those released by females on the
 patches. We then determined whether the different types of cues result in
 differential survival costs for males. We found that while the number of
 mating attempts observed was only influenced by the cues left in the
 substrate prior to the mating trials, the frequency of female acceptance
 and the consequent mating rate were affected by those cues and by cues
 produced by females themselves, being higher with cues from virgins. Once
 copulation started, its duration seemed to depend mainly on the mating
 status of the female being fertilized, with the overall amount of time
 invested in mating being higher in matings with virgins than in matings
 with mated females. Male survival costs mirrored male investment in
 reproductive behaviour, with patches with discordant cues showing
 intermediate mating rates, cumulative copulation duration and survival
 costs. We conclude that the optimal use of cues and corresponding
 behaviour should depend on the balance between the costs of acceptance and
 rejection errors and this, in turn, should vary with the dynamics of the
 social and ecological environment. ## Description of the Data and file
 structure Two datasets (Rodrigues_et_al._Dataset_across
 and Rodrigues_et_al._Dataset_raw) are provided (.txt), together with a
 file defining all variables found in the datasets (Rodrigues et al.
 Description Datasets.txt). In addition, the code can be found in file
 "Rodrigues_MC_scripts Dryad" (.r). This file is divided in 3
 sections: Datasets, Analyses and Graphs. The first allows the user to load
 the dataset into R and rename the relevant variables; the second includes
 all the statistical analyses done and described in the manuscript; the
 third contains the codes used to produce the graphs representing the data
 collected and found in the manuscript.