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. ...雌性配偶选择是一类复杂的决策过程，涉及诸多依赖于情境的影响因素。阐明调控雌性配偶选择行为差异的影响因素，对于通过性选择驱动的进化过程具有重要意义。在包括黑腹果蝇（Drosophila melanogaster）在内的诸多动物类群中，雄性常采用攻击性交配策略胁迫雌性完成交配，但目前尚不清楚雌性此前遭遇性胁迫的经历是否会改变其后续的交配行为。本研究使用经人工选育、分别表现出对雌性低水平与高水平性攻击性的雄性果蝇品系，以此探究雌性与这类雄性的交配经历如何影响其后续的配偶选择行为。首先，我们验证了这两类选育品系的雄性果蝇在交配行为上存在显著差异：相较于低性攻击性品系的雄性，高性攻击性品系的雄性会花费更多时间追求处女雌蝇，其交配潜伏期更短，但交配持续时间却更短。……