DOI: 10.5061/dryad.d51c5b0dh
title: Data from: The influence of temperature on courtship and mate choice in a wolf spider: Implications for mating success in variable environments

description: Selection on animal signal form often changes significantly with the
 environment, yet signal form may itself be environment dependent. Little
 is known about how variation in individual responses to changing
 environments affects the relationship between selection and the subsequent
 evolution of signal traits. To address this question, we assess the
 effects of variation in temperature on individual signaling and mating
 behavior responses across temperatures in the wolf spider Schizocosa
 floridana. By running repeated-measures trials, we find that temperature
 has predictable effects on signal form, but that the performance of
 individual courters is not consistent across temperatures. Traits
 associated with courtship rate generally increase at higher temperatures
 but inter-individual consistency in response to temperature change is low,
 despite consistent female preferences for increased courtship rate at all
 temperatures. Interestingly, production of the likely most recently
 evolved signal component, the chirp, is consistent within signalers and
 predicts male performance across temperatures. Despite this, female
 preferences for chirp duration appear only at higher temperatures. Taken
 together, our results suggest that individual courter responses to
 changing temperatures have the potential to dampen or eliminate patterns
 of selection that are evident across temperatures. We discuss these
 results in the light of current research on mating behavior and sexual
 selection.
description: # Data from: The influence of temperature on courtship and mate choice in
 a wolf spider: Implications for mating success in variable environments
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.d51c5b0dh](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.d51c5b0dh) ## Description of the data and file structure Dataset collected from laboratory recordings of wolf spider courtship. ### Files and variables #### File: floridana\_2019\_long.csv **Description:** Datasheet containing raw data from all trials used in analysis ##### Variables * female: Female identity * male: Male identity * temperature: Trial temperature (C) * complete: Yes if this pair courted in all three temperatures, otherwise No * Order: Order of trial * Mmass: Male mass (g) * Fmass: Female mass (g) * Date: Date of trial * Time: Time of trial * Notes from trial: notes taken during the running of mating trials * cop: Copulation success, y - yes, n - no * coptime: Time to copulation (if copulation occurred) * ths_in_bt: Thumps in a bout of thumping * chirps_in_bout: Chirps in a bout of chirping * pulse_dur: Average duration of chirp pulses (s) * nthump: Total number of thumps * ntap: Total number of taps * nchirps: Total number of chirps * th_bt_num: Total number of thump bouts * nchirp_bts: Total number of chirp bouts * chirp_bt_dur: Average duration of a bout of chirps (s) * th_period: Average period between thumps within a bout of thumping (s) * chirp_period: Average period between chirps within a bout of chirping (s) * pulses_in_chirp: Average number of pulses in a chirp * chirp_dur: Average duration of a chirp (s) * chirp_bt_per: Average period between bouts of chirping * Notes from analysis: notes taken during data analysis or scoring of recordings n/a- not applicable ## Code/software #### File: floridana\_2019.r **Description:** R script file containing code for the analyses and figures in this manuscript.