Data from: A female’s past experience with predators affects male courtship and the care her offspring will receive from their father

Differential allocation occurs when individuals adjust their reproductive investment based on their partner's traits. However, it remains unknown whether animals differentially allocate based on their partner's past experiences with predation risk. If animals can detect a potential mate’s experience with predators, this might inform them about the stress level of their potential mate, the likelihood of parental effects in offspring, and/or the dangers present in the environment. Using threespined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), we examined whether a female’s previous experience with being chased by a model predator while yolking eggs affects male mating effort and offspring care. Males displayed fewer conspicuous courtship behaviours towards females that had experienced predation risk in the past compared to unexposed females. This differential allocation extended to how males cared for the resulting offspring of these matings: fathers provided less parental care to offspring of females that had experienced predation risk in the past. Our results show for the first time that variation among females in their predator encounters can contribute to behavioural variation among males in courtship and parental care, even when males themselves do not encounter a predator. These results, together with previous findings, suggest that maternal predator exposure can influence offspring development both directly and indirectly, through how it affects father care.

差异分配（differential allocation）指个体根据配偶的特征调整自身繁殖投资的行为。然而目前尚不清楚动物是否会根据配偶过往遭遇捕食风险的经历来实施差异分配。
若动物能够感知潜在配偶的捕食经历，则可借此了解潜在配偶的应激水平、后代出现亲本效应的概率，以及环境中现存的危险程度。
本研究以三刺鱼（Gasterosteus aculeatus）为实验对象，探究雌性在怀卵阶段被模型捕食者追逐的过往经历，是否会影响雄性的交配投入与后代抚育行为。
相较于未经历过捕食风险的雌性，雄性对过往遭遇过捕食风险的雌性展现出的显眼求偶行为更少。
这种差异分配还延伸至雄性对本次交配产生的后代的抚育行为：雄性父亲对与曾遭遇捕食风险的雌性交配产生的后代提供的亲本抚育更少。
本研究首次证实，即便雄性自身并未遭遇捕食者，雌性在捕食遭遇上的个体差异，仍可导致雄性在求偶与亲本抚育行为上产生变异。
结合此前的研究结果，本研究结果表明：母体的捕食暴露经历可通过影响雄性抚育行为，以直接与间接两种方式影响后代的发育。