Data from: Sexual deception in a cannibalistic mating system? testing the Femme Fatale hypothesis

Animal communication theory holds that in order to be evolutionarily stable, signals must be honest on average, but significant dishonesty (i.e. deception) by a subset of the population may also evolve. A typical praying mantid mating system involves active mate searching by males, which is guided by airborne sex pheromones in most species for which mate-searching cues have been studied. The Femme Fatale hypothesis suggests that female mantids may be selected to exploit conspecific males as prey if they benefit nutritionally from cannibalism. Such a benefit exists in the false garden mantid Pseudomantis albofimbriata—females use the resources gained from male consumption to significantly increase their body condition and reproductive output. This study aimed to examine the potential for chemical deception among the subset of females most likely to benefit from cannibalism (poorly fed females). Females were placed into one of four feeding treatments (‘Very Poor’, ‘Poor’, ‘Medium’ and ‘Good’), and males were given the opportunity to choose between visually obscured females in each of the treatments. Female body condition and fecundity varied linearly with food quantity; however, female attractiveness did not. That is, Very Poor females attracted significantly more males than any of the other female treatments, even though these females were in significantly poorer condition, less fecund (in this study) and more likely to cannibalise (in a previous study). In addition, there was a positive correlation between fecundity and attractiveness if Very Poor females were removed from the analysis, suggesting an inherently honest signalling system with a subset of dishonest individuals. This is the first empirical study to provide evidence of sexual deception via chemical cues, and the first to provide support for the Femme Fatale hypothesis.

Usage Notes
Data set_ProceedingsData set describing female attractiveness (i.e. number of males) with respect to feeding treatment.

动物通讯理论认为，为了在进化上保持稳定，信号必须平均而言是诚实的，但种群中一小部分个体的显著不诚实（即欺骗）也可能进化。典型的螳螂交配系统涉及雄性的主动配偶搜索，对于大多数已研究配偶搜索线索的物种，这种搜索由空中性信息素引导。致命女性假说提出，如果雌性螳螂通过食肉行为从同种雄性中获益，那么它们可能会被选择以利用同种雄性作为猎物。这种利益存在于假花园螳螂 Pseudomantis albofimbriata 中——雌性利用从雄性消耗中获得的资源显著提高其身体条件和繁殖产出。本研究旨在检验可能从食肉行为中获益的雌性子集（营养不良的雌性）中化学欺骗的潜力。雌性被置于四种不同的喂养处理之一（“非常差”，“差”，“中等”和“好”），而雄性则有机会在每个处理中选择视觉隐蔽的雌性。雌性身体条件和繁殖力与食物数量呈线性关系；然而，雌性吸引力并未改变。也就是说，与任何其他雌性处理相比，非常差的雌性吸引了显著更多的雄性，尽管这些雌性处于显著较差的身体状况，繁殖力较低（在本研究中）并且更有可能食肉（在先前的研究中）。此外，如果从分析中排除非常差的雌性，繁殖力与吸引力之间存在正相关，这表明存在一个本质上是诚实的信息系统，其中包含一小部分不诚实的个体。这是第一项提供通过化学线索进行性欺骗证据的实证研究，也是首次为致命女性假说提供支持。

使用说明
数据集_描述雌性吸引力（即雄性数量）与喂养处理的关系的数据集。