DOI: 10.5061/dryad.pvmcvdnxw
title: Mating status-dependent 'choice' in competitive and non-competitive arenas

description: To maximize their reproductive fitness, females of many polyandrous
 species should display mating status-dependent choice, where they mate
 relatively indiscriminately once to ensure reproductive output, and then
 become choosy and mate preferentially with higher-quality males. Despite
 this potential contrast in choosiness, most mate choice experiments use
 virgin females. Here, we tested whether virgin and non-virgin females
 differ in their choosiness, and then test whether their choices are likely
 to be adaptive. To do so, we measured the latency to mate and the
 competitive mating success of male flies from 20 isofemale strains (i.e.,
 males that come from 20 different genetic backgrounds). We hypothesized
 that male mating success would vary more between strains when non-virgin
 females were choosing (captured by 'among-M-strain' variance),
 consistent with the theory that virgin females mate reltively
 indistriminately. We then performed a series of strain crosses and
 measured the egg-to-adult viability (number of adults that emerged from N
 eggs) and competitive fitness (numbers of wild-type [focal flies] versus
 brown-eyed [competitor flies] flies emerging) of flies emerging from these
 crosses. These assays test how strains and/or strain-combinations vary in
 their viability and fitness, and thus allow us to determine whether female
 choices are adaptive. Most virgin females mated within two hours of males
 being introduced, compared with fewer than half of non-virgin females
 mating over the same period. However, despite mating more rapidly, virgin
 females did not mate indiscriminately, and their ‘choices’ strongly
 aligned with those of previously mated females across both the single-male
 latency and male-male competition trials. Our results challenge the idea
 that virgin females mate relatively indiscriminately and show that female
 choice may be more stable than is generally appreciated.
description: # Mating status-dependent 'choice' in competitive and
 non-competitive arenas Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.pvmcvdnxw](10.5061/dryad.pvmcvdnxw) ## Description of the
 data and file structure Data collected for competitive and non-competitive
 mating success, egg-to-adult viability, and fitness, for 20 isofemale
 strains of flies. ### Files and variables #### File: EAV.csv
 **Description:** Egg-to-adult viability data. Strains were crosses in a
 full factorial design (4 strains per randomised block), and flies from the
 crosses mated and laid eggs. The eggs and emerging adults were counted.
 ##### Variables * block: randomised block (5 blocks, each with 4 isofemale
 strains) * Fstrain: the isofemale strain from which the female was derived
 * Mstrain: the isofemale strain from which the male was derived *
 cross: whether flies used in the cross were from the same isofemale strain
 (within) or from different strains (between) * eggs: the number of eggs
 laid * adults: the number of adults that emerged * eav: egg-to-adult
 viability, scored as ln((adults+1)/(eggs-adults+1)) #### File: Fitness.csv
 **Description:** Competitive fitness data. Male and female focal flies
 [WT] were competed against a brown-eyed fly [BE] of their own sex for
 access to a brown-eyed fly of the opposite sex, and the numbers of WT and
 BE offspring that emerged were recorded. Focal flies were produced from
 within- and between-strain crosses, which were performed as for
 egg-to-adult viability. ##### Variables * block: randomised block (5
 blocks, each with 4 isofemale strains) * Fstrain: the isofemale strain
 from which the female was derived * Mstrain: the isofemale strain from
 which the male was derived * sex: the sex of the wild-type (experimental)
 fly used in fitness assay * cross: whether the fly used in the fitness
 assay was derived from a within-strain (within) or between-strain
 (between) cross * BE: the number of brown-eyed offspring emerging from the
 vial * WT: the number of wild-type offspring emerging from the vial *
 fitness: fitness, scored as ln((WT+1)/(BE+1)) #### File: matingsucess.csv
 **Description:** The mating outcome (success: 1, failure: 0) for all
 trials. ##### Variables * block: randomised block (5 blocks, each with 4
 isofemale strains) * Fstrain: the isofemale strain from which the female
 was derived * Mstrain: the isofemale strain from which the male was
 derived * vial: in competitive trials, there were 4 males per vial; this
 column has the mating trial vial that links males that were used in the
 same trial * colour: in competitive trials, males were dyed different
 colours to differentiate them; this column has the colour that a male was
 dyed in the competitive trials * c.nc: whether the context was competitive
 (c: 4 males present) or non-competitive (nc: 1 male present) *
 v.nv: whether the context had virgin (v) or non-virgin (nv) females *
 win: whether a male was successful (1) or unsuccessful (0) at mating at
 the relevant cut-off time