Data from: Macronutrients and micronutrients drive trade-offs between male pre- and post-mating sexual traits

Nutrition fundamentally affects growth and reproduction, and identifying
how nutrient intakes are linked to the expression of these life-history
traits can advance understanding of the mechanisms underlying life history
trade-offs. Males are thought to face trade-offs between the allocation of
resources to pre-mating secondary sexual traits for gaining access to
females and allocation to post-mating traits such as ejaculate quality
that affects their fertility. We used the Geometric Framework for
nutrition to examine the effects of macronutrient and micronutrient
consumption on lifespan and the expression of pre- and post-mating sexual
traits in male field crickets Teleogryllus oceanicus. We found that
lifespan was maximized on diets with a low protein to carbohydrate (P:C)
ratio, while pre-mating sexual traits (courtship song and cuticular
hydrocarbons) were maximized on high P:C ratios. In contrast, sperm
viability, a post-mating trait, was lowest on high P:C ratio diets. Higher
consumption of micronutrients decreased lifespan and the general
abundances of CHCs, but improved the performance of sperm viability and
courtship song. We show that different macronutrients are not simply
calories to be allocated to different traits, but directly determine the
expression of different life history traits and mediate their trade-offs.
We also highlight the importance of including micronutrients in the
assessment of nutritional effects on the expression of life history
traits.