Natural selection, rather than sexual selection, plays a dominant role in the formation of body coloration in Drosophila suzukii

Drosophila suzukii, a widely distributed pest globally, causes significant economic losses to the fruit industry. The body color of D. suzukii exhibits plasticity, with the color changing according to the season: it is lighter in summer and darker in winter. Currently, research on the body color of D. suzukii mainly focuses on its functional aspects. However, a notable deficiency exists in current understanding of how plastic body color traits in D. suzukii are formed, highlighting a significant area for future research. Given the important roles of natural and sexual selection in the formation of insect traits, we deduced that both natural and sexual selection play key roles in the development of body coloration in D. suzukii. In order to test this hypothesis, we measured the dorsal abdominal melanization rate, chill coma duration, and mating success rate in D. suzukii and we also calculated the contributions of natural selection and sexual selection to the formation of plastic body co..., Fly stocks
Adult D. suzukii were collected from a Hui Wang blueberry orchard in Nanling, Anhui Province, China, in 2022 (30.92°N, 118.34°E). And all D. suzukii used in this study were collected from the wild and used in experiments within five generations. Under laboratory conditions, adults D. suzukii were independently reared in nylon cube cages (35×35×35 cm) at artificial climate chambers with 65% humidity. Three different temperature and photoperiod conditions were used as the experimental subjects: (1) 15°C with L:D =10h:14h, (2) 20°C with L:D (Light: Dark) =12h:12h, (3) 25°C with L:D =14h:10h. D. suzukii were fed a 240-mL plastic cup containing 80 mL of solid food (water: 1000.00 mL, corn flour: 44.67 g, sucrose: 71.33 g, agar: 16.00 g, yeast: 25.00 g, propionic acid: 6.30 mL, 100% ethanol: 22.30 mL) (Gonzalez-Cabrera et al. 2018), which was changed daily.
Dorsal abdominal melanization measurement
Thirty 3-day-old male and Thirty 3-day-old female D. suzukii were collected from eac..., , # Natural selection, rather than sexual selection, plays a dominant role in the formation of body coloration in *Drosophila suzukii*

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.c866t1ghd](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.c866t1ghd)

## Description of the data and file structure

The dataset consists of a data.xlsx, which consists of dorsal abdominal melanization rate and chill coma recovery duration of *D. suzukii.*

### Files and variables

#### File: data.xlsx

**Description:** The data on the abdominal dorsal melanization rate and the recovery duration of chill coma in *Drosophila suzukii* under three different temperature rearing conditions.

##### The data file consists of the following sheets:

* Abdominal dorsal melanization rate: The table presents dorsal abdominal melanization values across three temperature treatments (15°C, 20°C, and 25°C) for both males and females. The values likely represent mean melanization scores or proportions for individual samples or replicates under each condition...,