Previous inter-sexual aggression increases female mating propensity in fruit flies

Female mate choice is a complex decision making process that involves many context-dependent factors. Understanding the factors that shape variation in female mate choice has important consequences for evolution via sexual selection. In many animals including fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, males often use aggressive mating strategies to coerce females into mating, but it is not clear if females’ experience with sexual aggression shapes their future behaviors. Here, we used males derived from lineages that were artificially selected to display either low or high sexual aggression toward females to determine how experience with these males shapes subsequent female mate choice. First, we verified that males from these lineages differed in their sexual behaviors. We found that males from high sexual aggression backgrounds spent more time pursuing virgin females, and had a shorter mating latency but shorter copulation duration compared to males from low sexual aggression backgrounds. ...