DOI: 10.5061/dryad.mw6m9063m
title: Data from: Mating competition among females: testing the distinction between natural and sexual selection in an insect

description: In species where females compete for mates, the male often provides the
 female with resources in addition to gametes. A recently suggested
 definition of sexual selection proposed that if females only benefit from
 additional resources that come with each mating and not additional
 gametes, female intrasexual competition for mating opportunities would
 result in natural selection rather than sexual selection. The nuptial
 gift-giving bushcricket Kawanaphila nartee has dynamic sex roles and has
 been a textbook example of sexual selection acting on females via mating
 competition. We investigated whether females of this species gain fitness
 benefits from nuptial gifts, additional ejaculates, or both, by
 controlling the number of matings and whether the female was allowed to
 consume the nutritious gift (spermatophylax) at mating. We found that egg
 production per day of life increased with the number of additional
 matings, both with and without spermatophylax consumption, but consuming
 the spermatophylax had an additional positive effect on the number of
 eggs. These effects were particularly strong in females with shorter
 lifespans. We discuss how the recently suggested definition of sexual
 selection applies to nuptial feeding insects, and conclude that both
 natural and sexual selection influence mating competition in K. nartee
 females.
description: Bushcrickets (<em>Kawanaphila nartee</em>) were
 collected from King's Park, Perth. Females were split into three
 treatments: a) ‘single mating’; b) multiple mating without spermatophylax:
 ‘sperm only’; and c) multiple mating with spermatophylax: ‘gift + sperm’.
 Females were allowed to continuously oviposit into a sand cup, and
 lifetime egg production was counted after the female perished
 naturally. 
description: # Data from: Mating competition among females: testing the distinction
 between natural and sexual selection in an insect This dataset is a part
 of the manuscript "Mating competition among females: testing the
 distinction between natural and sexual selection in an insect",
 submitted in Royal Society Open Science. The nuptial gift-giving
 bushcricket Kawanaphila nartee has dynamic sex roles and has been commonly
 used as an example of sexual selection acting on females via mating
 competition. However, a recently suggested definition of sexual selection
 proposed that if females only benefit from additional resources that come
 with each mating and not additional gametes, female intrasexual
 competition for mating opportunities would result in natural selection
 rather than sexual selection. In this study, we investigated whether
 females of this species gain fitness benefits from nuptial gifts,
 additional ejaculates, or both, by controlling the number of female
 matings and whether the female was allowed to consume the nutritious gift
 (spermatophylax) at mating. ## FILES Data file:
 K-nartee-polyandry-data.csv R script file: K-nartee.R ## VERSIONS AND
 SOFTWARE USED R version 4.2.1 (2022-06-23) Platform:
 x86_64-apple-darwin17.0 (64-bit) Running under: macOS 14.3 attached base
 packages: parallel; stats; graphics; grDevices; utils; datasets; methods;
 base other attached packages: ggplot2_3.4.4; MuMIn_1.47.5; car_3.1-2;
 carData_3.0-5; Rmisc_1.5.1; plyr_1.8.8; lattice_0.20-45; lme4_1.1-32;
 Matrix_1.5-3; emmeans_1.8.9; moments_0.14.1 ### VARIABLES IN THE DATA
 Treatment: The main treatment effect. 'single': female was
 allowed to mate only once, and was allowed to consume the nuptial gift
 upon mating 'spermgift': female was allowed to mate multiple
 times, and was allowed to consume the nuptial gift upon each mating
 'spermonly': female was allowed to mate multiple times, and was
 prevented from consuming the nuptial gift on the 2nd and 3rd mating
 PronLength: pronotum length (mm) Matings: Number of times the female mated
 in total (1-3) TreatMate: Variable with six levels, combining the
 categories of treatment and number of matings. Used when creating figures.
 Eggs: Total number of eggs produced in the females lifetime. ViableEggs:
 Number of eggs estimated to be viable through the viability assay (where a
 maximum of 40 eggs were assayed) InviableEggs: Number of eggs in the assay
 - number of viable eggs (ViableEggs) AvEggWeight: Average egg weight
 (total egg weight divided by number of eggs, mg) Lifespan: Days the female
 lived from the first mating until death Days3rdMate: Number of days the
 female took to achieve a third mating, starting from the day she was
 introduced to males again after second mating. Only females that mated
 three times are included. Days3rdMateAll: Number of days the female was
 exposed to a new male without mating a third time. Same as above, but
 includes individuals that mated twice and were alive at the end of mating
 trials but had not mated for a third time. These individuals got the
 ceiling date of 27th of October (the day the mating trials were ended),
 while the rest were calculated as in Days3rdMate.