Data from: Males adjust their signalling behaviour according to experience of male signals and male-female signal duets

Sexual signals are conspicuous sources of information about neighbouring
competitors, and species in which males and females signal during pair
formation provide various sources of public information to which
individuals can adjust their behaviour. We performed two experiments with
a duetting vibrational insect, Enchenopa binotata treehoppers (Hemiptera:
Membracidae), to ask whether males adjust their signalling behaviour
according to (1a) their own experience of competitors' signals, (1b)
how females adjust their mate preferences on the basis of their experience
of male signals (described in prior work), and/or (2) their own experience
of female response signals to competitors' signals. We presented
males with synthetic male signals of different frequencies and
combinations thereof for 2 weeks. We recorded males a day after their last
signal exposure, finding that (1a) male signal rate increased in response
to experience of attractive competitors, but that (1b) male signal
frequency did not shift in a manner consistent with how females adjust
their mate preferences in those experience treatments. Second, we
presented males with different male–female duets for 2 weeks, finding that
(2) male signal length increased from experience of female duets with
attractive competitors. Males thus make two types of adjustment according
to two sources of public information: one provided by experience of male
signals and another by experience of female responses to male signals.
Signalling plasticity can generate feedback loops between the adjustments
that males and females make, and we discuss the potential consequences of
such feedback loops for the evolution of communication systems.