Sex-specific manipulation of sexually cannibalistic mantid mating behavior by hairworms

Changes in the morphology, physiology and behavior of parasitized organisms provide an ideal opportunity to examine the extended phenotype of parasites. Since the quality of the host directly affects the fitness of the parasite, parasites may increase their fitness by manipulating phenotypes of low-quality hosts. Males are usually preyed on by females in sexual cannibalism. Thus, the males of sexually cannibalistic species are unsafe and low-quality hosts for parasites, while females may be beneficial hosts because of the chance of nutrient intake from cannibalized males. Under passive modes of transmission, parasites cannot choose the host sex. Such parasites exploiting sexually cannibalistic organisms are subjected to contrasting fitness effects and may evolve to manipulate host mating behavior in a sex-specific manner: decreasing male mating to avoid cannibalism and promoting female mating to engage in cannibalism. We examined this hypothesis by a behavioral experiment using a mantid..., , , # Data from: Sex-specific manipulation of sexually cannibalistic mantid mating behavior by hairworms

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4j0zpc8jw](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4j0zpc8jw)

## Description of the data and file structure

The results of mating experiment using a mantid-hairworm system (mating_experiment.csv)

### Files and variables

#### File: mating\_experiment.csv

**Description:** Behavioral data in mating experiment.

##### Variables

year: Year of conducting experiment.

m_size: Pronotum length of the male (mm).

f_size: Pronotum length of the female (mm).

m_inf: Parasitism of the male (1 = infected, 0 = not infected).

f_inf: Parasitism of the female (1 = infected, 0 = not infected).

m_load: Total dry weight of hairworms in the male (g).

f_load: Total dry weight of hairworms in the female (g).

obs_time: Total observation time (min).

n_m_abd_bend: Total number of male horizontal abdominal bendings.

lat_m_abd bend: Latency to the first male horizontal abdominal ben...