Sexual selection's role in the persistence of polymorphism in an aposematic signal
Data files
Oct 09, 2025 version files 79.78 KB
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Bast_Agg_final.csv
12.06 KB
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Capture_Mark_Recapture_Code.Rmd
17.43 KB
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Male_Aggression.Rmd
16.88 KB
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Mark_Females.txt
14.17 KB
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Mark_Males.txt
15.52 KB
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README.md
3.71 KB
Abstract
The persistence of polymorphisms in aposematic species remains one of the most interesting paradoxes in evolutionary biology because aposematism theory suggests that polymorphisms should be unstable over time. We offer an explanation for the persistence of aposematic polymorphisms that considers not only the role of natural selection but also the role of sexual selection. While predation and mate choice generally act to erode signal variation, intraspecific competition may facilitate polymorphisms by reducing mate competition for males bearing the rarer warning signal. We tested this hypothesis in a population of the strawberry poison frog (Oophaga pumilio), where red (common) and yellow (rare) morphs co-exist using (1) a 10-year capture-mark-recapture experiment to study natural selection, and (2) a territorial intrusion experiment and (3) previously-published mate choice experiments to study sexual selection. We found that rare yellow males suffer less aggression from male conspecifics, suggesting negative frequency dependent selection. Moreover, the more common and choosier red females have lower apparent survival than their less choosy yellow counterparts, suggesting that survival may be better explained by costs of exercising mate choice rather than by predation. Our work highlights the importance of considering multiple sources of selection in explaining the paradoxical persistence of aposematic polymorphisms.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.hhmgqnkvf
Description of the data and file structure
This dataset contains data and code to replicate the findings in the manuscript: "Sexual selection’s role in the persistence of polymorphism in an aposematic signal".
We performed two separate analyses: capture-mark-recapture analysis and male aggression analysis.
The capture-mark-recapture analysis were performed on males and females separately. Therefore, the code must be run for each sex separately (we submitted the data separately).
The infraspecific competition analysis can be replicated with the data containing territorial intrusion experiments (Bast_Agg_final)
Files and variables
File: Mark_Males.txt
Variables
- ch: capture or recapture history for males. 0 means that the frog was not found, and 1 means that the frog was found at that particular survey
- color: dorsal coloration of the frog
File: Capture_Mark_Recapture_Code.Rmd
Description: Code for capture_mark_recapture analysis
File: Bast_Agg_final.csv
Variables
- ID: individual
- success: whether the experiment was Successful (S) or not (F for Fail/R for recaptured male, so the data was discarded)
- date: date of experiment
- pop: population name
- time: time of the day when the experiment was performed
- experimenter: name of experimenter
- color: color of the focal frog
- model: color of the 3D printed frog
- SVL: snout-vent length (mm)
- perch_height: perch height of focal frog (cm)
- perch_type: perch type of focal frog
- start_call: if the frog was calling at the moment of starting the experiment
- conspp: if the focal frog was with a conspecific at the moment of the experiment
- total_time: total time of trial (seconds)
- track: whether the focal frog turned to face the frog decoy
- track_lat: latency time that it took the focal frog to face to the frog decoy (seconds)
- approach: whether the focal frog approached the frog decoy
- approach_lat: latency time that it took the focal frog to approach the frog decoy (seconds)
- challenge: whether the focal frog approached the frog decoy's perch
- challenge_lat: latency time that it took the focal frog to approach the frog decoy's perch (seconds)
- challenge_time: time that the focal frog was on the frog decoy's perch (seconds)
- attack: whether the focal frog attacked the frog decoy
- attack_lat: latency time that it took the focal frog to attach the frog decoy (seconds)
- attack_num: Number of attacks of the focal frog to the frog decoy
- pin_num: Number of times the male pins the model down
- call: whether the frog called in response to the intrusion experiment
- call_num: number of calls during the experiment
- call_time: total seconds the focal male spent calling during the experiment
- notes: outstanding observations during the experiment
Note: There are missing values associated to males that did not perform some of the behaviors measured (e.g., a male that did not 'challenge' the decoy frog will have a missing value in the column 'challenge_lat'). Missing values will be interpreted as "NA" by running the line in our shared code: "fileEncoding="UTF-8-BOM", na.strings = "").
File: Male_Aggression.Rmd
Description: Code for male aggression analysis
File: Mark_Females.txt
Variables
- ch: capture or recapture history for females. 0 means that the frog was not found and 1 that the frog was found at that particular survey
- color: dorsal color of the frog
Code/software
All code can be run in R
Codes have been uploaded as .Rmd files