DOI: 10.5061/dryad.69p8cz9dx
title: Chemical mate choice copying in Drosophila melanogaster

description: Mate choice is a critical decision especially for females that requires
 time and energy to assess potential partners’ genetic quality.
 Consequently, in many species, females have evolved the ability to utilize
 social information by copying the mate choices of others, usually based on
 visual cues. However, many species, especially invertebrates, primarily
 rely on chemical not visual cues. Using chemical rather than visual cues
 provides several advantages such as not requiring active observation of
 copulations. Despite that, empirical evidence for the existence of
 chemical mate choice copying is scarce. Using Drosophila melanogaster, we
 provide the first demonstration of chemical mate choice copying. Females
 exposed to a recently mated select the same male genotype as the
 demonstrator female mated with at a higher frequency than expected by
 chance. Chemical mate choice copying requires sensing both male and female
 cues, which might indicate that other females have chosen that male
 genotype. Our work suggests that females, in the presence of mated
 females, increase choosiness at the virgin stage, elevating sexual
 selection on male traits. This study provides novel evidence that
 exploiting social information is more prevalent in flies than previously
 assumed.
description: # Chemical mate choice copying in Drosophila melanogaster Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.69p8cz9dx](10.5061/dryad.69p8cz9dx) ## Description of the
 data and file structure README for the manuscript "Chemical mate
 choice copying in Drosophila melanogaster" Bloo Mitchell, Alexandria
 Abbott, Ashanti Brown, Lacy N Skinner, Elmira Umarova, Philip Kohlmeier
 Summary: Mate choice copying is a widespread social learning behavior
 where individuals base their mate selection on the choices of others. In
 this study, we provide the first empirical evidence of chemical mate
 choice copying in Drosophila melanogaster. We demonstrate that observer
 females, when exposed to recently mated females, preferentially select
 males of the same genotype as the demonstrator’s mate. Our results suggest
 that chemical cues left on mated females serve as social information,
 influencing female mate preferences. This finding broadens our
 understanding of mate choice mechanisms and highlights the importance of
 chemical communication in insect social behavior. **Description of data
 files and columns:** Provided are four data files in .csv format and an R
 script in a .R format. **File 1: Filename: Data Demonstrator
 Experiment.csv** Description: Includes the data presented in Figure 2A.
 Each row represents the choice of one female observer. Column A
 ("Female_choice_for_M4"): 0 = Observer female did not select M4
 male 1 = Observer female selected M4 male Column B
 ("Female_choice_for_M7"): 0 = Observer female did not select M7
 male 1 = Observer female selected M7 male Column C
 ("Treatment"): M4_demonstrator = An Observer female was exposed
 to a demonstrator that was mated with an M4 male M7_demonstrator =
 Observer female was exposed to a demonstrator that was mated with an M7
 male No demonstrator = Observer female was not exposed to a demonstrator
 The = Observer female was exposed to a virgin demonstrator **File 2:
 Filename: Data M4 Extract Experiment.csv** Description: Includes the data
 presented in Figure 2B. Each row represents the choice of one observer
 female. Column A ("Date"): Date on which the respective
 datapoint was collected Column B ("Female_choice_for_M4"): 0 =
 Observer female did not select M4 male 1 = Observer female selected M4
 male Column C ("Female_choice_for_M7"): 0 = Observer female did
 not select M7 male 1 = Observer female selected M7 male Column D
 ("Treatment"): M4_males = Observer female was exposed to a CHC
 extract of M4 males M4_mated_OR_demonstrator_extract = Observer female was
 exposed to a CHC extract of OR females mated with M4 males **File 3:
 Filename: Data M7 Extract Experiment.csv** Description: Includes the data
 presented in Figure 2C. Each row represents the choice of one female
 observer. Column A ("Date"): Date on which the respective
 datapoint was collected Column B ("Female_choice_for_M4"): 0 =
 Observer female did not select M4 male 1 = Observer female did select M4
 male Column C ("Female_choice_for_M7"): 0 = Observer female did
 not select M7 male 1 = Observer female did select M7 male Column D
 ("Treatment"): M7_males = Observer female was exposed to a CHC
 extract of M7 males M7_mated_OR_demonstrator_extract = Observer female was
 exposed to a CHC extract of OR females mated with M7 males **File 4:
 Filename: Data two demonstrators Experiment.csv** Description: Includes
 the data presented in Figure 3. Each row represents the choice of one
 observer female. Column A ("Date"): Date on which the respective
 datapoint was collected Column B ("Female_choice_for_M4"): 0 =
 Observer female did not select M4 male 1 = Observer female did select M4
 male Column C ("Female_choice_for_M7") 0 = Observer female did
 not select M7 male 1 = Observer female did select M7 male Column D
 ("Treatment"): 2-demonstrator = Observer female was exposed to
 two demonstrators (one mated with M4, the other with M7 males) **File 5:
 Filename: analysis mate copying.R** Description: Includes the code
 generated to analyze the data in each of the four provided .csv data
 files. All analyses were run in R 4.1.1. The packages car (v 3.0-11) and
 lme4 (v 1.1-27.1) were used. To run the analysis, load the provided script
 into R. Add the path to the folder into which the data sheets have been
 copied into the command given in line 3 ("setwd("")). Then,
 run the script.