The influence of temperature on courtship and mate choice in a wolf spider: Implications for mating success in variable environments

Selection on animal signal form often changes significantly with the environment, yet signal form may itself be environment dependent. Little is known about how variation in individual responses to changing environments affects the relationship between selection and the subsequent evolution of signal traits. To address this question, we assess the effects of variation in temperature on individual signaling and mating behavior responses across temperatures in the wolf spider Schizocosa floridana. By running repeated-measures trials, we find that temperature has predictable effects on signal form, but that the performance of individual courters is not consistent across temperatures. Traits associated with courtship rate generally increase at higher temperatures but inter-individual consistency in response to temperature change is low, despite consistent female preferences for increased courtship rate at all temperatures. Interestingly, production of the likely most recently evolved signal..., , , # Data from: The influence of temperature on courtship and mate choice in a wolf spider: Implications for mating success in variable environments

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.d51c5b0dh](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.d51c5b0dh)

## Description of the data and file structure

Dataset collected from laboratory recordings of wolf spider courtship.

### Files and variables

#### File: floridana\_2019\_long.csv

**Description:** Datasheet containing raw data from all trials used in analysis

##### Variables

* female: Female identity
* male: Male identity
* temperature: Trial temperature (C)
* complete: Yes if this pair courted in all three temperatures, otherwise No
* Order: Order of trial
* Mmass: Male mass (g)
* Fmass: Female mass (g)
* Date: Date of trial
* Time: Time of trial
* Notes from trial: notes taken during the running of mating trials
* cop: Copulation success, y - yes, n - no
* coptime: Time to copulation (if copulation occurred)
* ths_in_bt: Thumps in a bout of thumping
* c...,