Data from: Female house mice avoid fertilization by t haplotype incompatible males in a mate choice experiment

The t haplotype in house mice is a well-known selfish genetic element with
detrimental, nonadditive fitness consequences to its carriers: recessive
lethal mutations cause t/t homozygotes to perish in utero. Given the
severe genetic incompatibility imposed by the t haplotype, we predict
females to avoid fertilization by t haplotype incompatible males. Indeed,
some of the strongest evidence for compatibility mate choice is related to
the t haplotype in house mice. However, all previous evidence for
compatibility mate choice in this system is based on olfactory preference.
It is so far unknown how general these preferences are and whether they
are relevant in an actual mating context. Here, we assess female
compatibility mate choice related to t haplotypes in a setting that – for
the first time – allowed females to directly interact and mate with males.
This approach enabled us to analyse female behaviour during the testing
period, and the resulting paternity success and fitness consequences of a
given choice. We show that genetic incompatibilities arising from the t
haplotype had severe indirect fitness consequences and t females avoided
fertilization by t incompatible males. The results are inconclusive
whether this avoidance of t fertilization by t females was caused by pre-
or post-copulatory processes.