Data from: Interacting phenotypic plasticities: Do male and female responses to the sociosexual environment interact to determine fitness?

Socially induced plasticity in reproductive effort is a widely documented phenomenon. However, few empirical studies have examined how male and female plastic responses to the social environment might interact in determining fitness outcomes. In field crickets, Teleogryllus oceanicus, males respond to rival song by increasing expenditure on seminal fluid proteins that enhance competitive fertilization success at the cost of reduced embryo survival. It remains unknown whether plastic responses in females could moderate the effects of male competitiveness on offspring performance. Here we used a fully factorial design to explore the interacting effects on fitness of male and female plasticity to the sociosexual environment. We found that female crickets exposed to male song increased the number of eggs produced during early life reproduction, which came at a cost of reduced offspring size. There was evidence, albeit weak, that interacting effects of male and female sociosexual environment contributed to variation in the hatching success of eggs laid by females. Lifetime offspring production was unaffected by the sociosexual environments to which upstream male and female plastic responses were made. Our data offer a rare test of the theoretical expectation

社会环境诱导的生殖投入可塑性是一项被广泛报道的科学现象。然而，鲜有实证研究探讨雌雄个体对社会环境的可塑性响应如何相互作用，进而影响适合度结局。在田野蟋蟀（Teleogryllus oceanicus）中，雄性会通过增加精浆蛋白的投入来响应竞争者的鸣唱：这类蛋白可提升竞争性受精成功率，但代价是胚胎存活率下降。目前尚不清楚雌性的可塑性响应是否能够调节雄性竞争力对子代表现的影响。本研究采用完全析因设计，探究雌雄个体对社会性行为环境的可塑性响应的交互作用如何影响适合度。研究结果显示，暴露于雄性鸣唱环境的雌性蟋蟀，其早期繁殖阶段的产卵量有所提升，但这以子代体型减小为代价。尽管证据强度较弱，但已有迹象表明，雌雄社会性行为环境的交互作用会导致雌性所产卵的孵化成功率出现差异。雌雄个体对社会性行为环境的先期可塑性响应，并未对其终生产出的子代总量产生影响。本研究的数据为该理论预期提供了一项难得的实证检验。