DOI: 10.5061/dryad.tx95x6b9x
title: Data from: Environmental stress influences reproductive success in male spider mites

description: Environmental stressors can limit access to resources in numerous ways,
 shaping an organism's condition and fitness within and across
 generations. Resource constraints are especially important for sexual
 selection, as many components of mating behaviour, from sexual signalling
 to sperm production, are condition-dependent. Environmental stress can
 therefore be an important ecological mediator of patterns of sexual
 selection. In this study, we measured condition-dependent male
 reproductive success in the haplodiploid spider mite Tetranychus urticae.
 Males were placed in different host-plant environments, generating
 different stress levels (bean = low stress, tomato = intermediate, and
 tomato with cadmium = high stress) during their juvenile stage. The impact
 of the male juvenile environment was measured by placing males, once
 adult, with females from a low-stress environment. We measured several
 fitness traits for males, including mating success, partner fecundity,
 number of female offspring reaching adulthood, and offspring sex ratio.
 Juvenile environment did not influence adult male mating success, but
 males from the high stress environment suffered reduced reproductive
 success, producing fewer female offspring, suggesting that stressed males
 either pass fewer sperm or less/lower quality seminal fluid to females if
 they do mate. Likewise, offspring sex ratios were correlated with male
 stress, with sex ratios becoming less female-biased with increasing
 juvenile stress. The male juvenile environment in a haplodiploid species
 can reduce their reproductive success and prevent females mated to these
 males from producing optimal offspring sex ratios. Environmental stress
 experienced by adults can therefore impact both males and females and,
 through effects on sex allocation, their offspring.
description: # Data from: Environmental stress influences reproductive success in male
 spider mites Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.tx95x6b9x](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.tx95x6b9x) ##
 Description of the data and file structure ### Files and variables ####
 File: Noel_et_al_Ecol_Ent.xlsx **Description:** This is an excel file
 containing the data from the experiment. ##### Variables * 'ind’ is
 an individual number identifier for each replicate male in the experiment.
 - ‘block’ denotes the two different temporal blocks in the experiment ‘A’
 and ‘B’. * ‘box’ is the box the different replicates were contained in
 during the experiment. - ‘Male_environment’ is the plant environment the
 males experienced as juveniles; bean, tomato or tomato cadmium. *
 ‘Virgin_mother’ states whether the male came from a virgin or non-virgin
 mother. Note there are some blank cells as data was missing for some
 males.  - ‘Fecundity’ is the number of eggs laid by the female. *
 ‘Female_survival’ is whether the female the males was mated to survived
 until day 10; ‘1’ denotes she was alive, ‘0’ that she was dead and an
 empty cell that the female was missing. - ‘Male_survival’ is whether the
 focal male survived until day 10; ‘1’ denotes he was alive, ‘0’ that he
 was dead and an empty cell that the male was missing. * ‘Female_offspring’
 is the total number of female offspring that became adult. -
 ‘Male_offspring’ is the total number of male offspring that became adult.
 * ‘Mating_success’ is whether there was successful fertilisation, measured
 as the presence of female offspring. - ‘Total_offspring’ is the total
 number of male and female offspring that became adult. ## Code/software
 OpenOffice/Microsoft Excel can be used to view the file.