Data from: Prior information and social experience influence male reproductive decisions

Increasing attention has focused on understanding how past experiences can influence and explain variation in mating preferences among individuals. We examined how previous social experiences affected courtship preferences in Drosophila melanogaster by exposing individual males to different frequency distributions of high- and low-quality (HQ and LQ) females and by allowing them to copulate with either a HQ or LQ mate. For a male, a large female represents a high-quality mate while a small female is a low-quality mate. We subsequently quantified the courtship behavior of these individuals in the presence of one HQ and one LQ female. Two aspects of male courtship behavior were significantly influenced by prior experience. Males previously exposed to a population of 75% HQ females more often initially courted the HQ than LQ female and more strongly biased overall courtship activity toward the HQ female compared to males previously exposed to a population of 25% HQ females. Furthermore, for some males, the type of female a male mated with in the experience phase influenced the type of female he first courted in the test phase: males that experienced a population containing only 25% HQ females and who mated with a LQ female in the experience phase, more often courted the LQ female first in the test phase while all other males biased courtship toward the HQ female. Our results indicate that information gained about the relative abundance of mate quality types and previous mating experience can affect future mating behavior.

学界日益关注过往经历如何影响并解释个体间交配偏好的差异。本研究以黑腹果蝇（Drosophila melanogaster）为实验对象，通过让单个雄果蝇接触不同优质（HQ）与劣质（LQ）雌果蝇的频率分布种群，并允许其与优质或劣质雌果蝇完成交配，探究了过往社会经历对其求偶偏好的影响。对雄果蝇而言，体型较大的雌果蝇属于优质交配对象，体型较小的则为劣质交配对象。随后，我们在同时存在一只优质雌果蝇与一只劣质雌果蝇的环境中，对这些雄果蝇的求偶行为进行了量化分析。雄果蝇求偶行为的两个维度均受到过往经历的显著影响。与此前接触25%优质雌果蝇种群的雄果蝇相比，此前接触75%优质雌果蝇种群的雄果蝇，不仅初始求偶时更常选择优质雌果蝇，且整体求偶活动对优质雌果蝇的偏向性更强。此外，部分雄果蝇在经历阶段的交配对象类型，会影响其在测试阶段的初始求偶对象：仅接触25%优质雌果蝇种群且在经历阶段与劣质雌果蝇交配的雄果蝇，在测试阶段更倾向于首先求偶劣质雌果蝇，而其余所有雄果蝇的求偶行为均偏向优质雌果蝇。本研究结果表明，获取的交配对象质量类型相对丰度信息以及过往交配经历，均可影响个体未来的交配行为。