10.5061/DRYAD.26TH0
Hendrickx, Frederik
Ghent University
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences
Vanthournout, Bram
Aarhus University
Taborsky, Michael
University of Bern
Data from: Selection for costly sexual traits results in a vacant mating
niche and male dimorphism
Dryad
dataset
2015
Oedothorax gibbosus
2015-07-29T17:51:06Z
2015-07-29T17:51:06Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.12720
32595 bytes
1
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
The expected strong directional selection for traits that increase a
male's mating ability conflicts with the frequent observation that
within species, males may show extreme variation in sexual traits. These
male reproductive polymorphisms are usually attributed to direct male-male
competition. It is currently unclear, however, how directional selection
for sexually selected traits may convert into disruptive selection, and if
female preference for elaborate traits may be an alternative mechanism
driving the evolution of male polymorphism. Here we explore this mechanism
using the polyandric dwarf spider Oedothorax gibbosus as a model. We first
show that males characterized by conspicuous cephalic structures serving
as a nuptial feeding device (‘gibbosus males’) significantly outperform
other males in siring offspring of previously fertilized females. However,
significant costs in terms of development time of gibbosus males open a
mating niche for an alternative male type lacking expensive secondary
sexual traits. These ‘tuberosus males’ obtain virtually all fertilizations
early in the breeding season. Individual-based simulations demonstrate a
hitherto unknown general principle, by which males selected for high
investment to attract females suffer constrained mating opportunities.
This creates a vacant mating niche of unmated females for non-investing
males and, consequently, disruptive selection on male secondary sexual
traits.
Data mating experimentRaw data of the mating experiment. First sheet
present the data of a single male exposure (corresponding to left panel of
Fig. 3), second sheet multiple male exposure (corresponding to right panel
Fig. 3). Column 1 and 2 describe the morph type of the respectively first
and second male to which a female was mated (t = tuberosus, g = gibbosus).
"ncop" = number of copulations in a session; "cop" =
binary variable describing if a copulation took place (1 = yes; 0 =
no).Mating experiment.xlsxPhenological dataRaw data presented in Fig. 4.
('nfem' = total number of females (mated and unmated); 'n
unmated fem' = number of unmated females; n tub = number of tuberosus
males; n gib = number of gibbosus males; n juv = number of immature
individuals)Phenology.xlsxSperm competition dataSperm competition data
('exp' = Experimental series, with FS representing fertile male
-sterile male sequence and SF representing sterile male - fertile male
sequence). ID is a unique identifier of each female. 'n1st' are
the number of offspring sired by the first male (i.e. fertile in FS and
sterile in SF). 'n2nd' are the number of offspring sired by the
second male (i.e. sterile in FS and fertile in SF)Sperm competition.xlsx