Data for: Ecological contexts shape sexual selection on male color morphs in wood tiger moths
Data files
Apr 03, 2025 version files 26.24 KB
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Data_for_publication_Selenius_et_al.zip
22.67 KB
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README.md
3.58 KB
Abstract
Color polymorphisms in natural populations often reflect the interplay between various selective pressures, such as natural and sexual selection. In this study, we investigate the dynamics of sexual selection operating on color polymorphism in wood tiger moths under different ecological contexts. Wood tiger moths exhibit polymorphism in male hindwing coloration, with individuals possessing one or two dominant W alleles displaying two forms of white coloration that differ in their UV reflectance (WW, Wy), while those with two recessive y alleles exhibit yellow coloration (yy). Females carry the color alleles, but do not express them phenotypically. We performed two mate choice experiments that simulated two ecological conditions: one with limited morph availability and low male encounter rates and the other with all morphs present and high potential for male encounters. We collected data on morph-specific mating success of the males, mating latency, female rejections along with fitness measurements of the number of eggs, number of larvae and hatching success for each mated pair. Our data files contain this information along other variables used as random effects, such as the dates of the experiments, replicate numbers and unique IDs of the stock females used in these experiments. The data is stored as six .csv files along with a README file containing a more precise description of the variable names and types. We demonstrate that WW males consistently experience higher mating success compared to yy males, irrespective of the presence of Wy males and male encounter rates. Surprisingly, mating with a WW male does not confer direct reproductive benefits to females in terms of lifetime reproductive success; instead, Wy females exhibit overall higher reproductive success regardless of their mating partner. Although the precise mechanism driving the higher mating success of WW males remains unclear, a temporal decline in mating success of WW males suggests potential differences in male mating strategies. Our findings support the hypothesis that sexual selection contributes to the maintenance of polymorphism, revealing a stable mating advantage of a particular color morph that may be offset by other selective forces.
These files contain the data for the article “Ecological contexts shape sexual selection on male color morphs in wood tiger moths” by Selenius E., De Pasqual C., Hänninen M., Kartano L., Winters S., Mappes J. These files contain all necessary data to replicate the statistical analyses performed in the manuscript.
The dataset consists of the following .csv files:
MatingSuccess_largecage
MatingSuccess_pairwise
Rejections_largecage
Rejections_pairwise
Fitness_largecage
Fitness_pairwise
Explanation of variables
The data contains the following variables:
Genotype - Color morph of the moth, either WW, WY or YY.
FemaleGenotype - Color morph of the female moth. Either WW, Wy, yy or Wx, when it was known to be either WW or Wy.
MaleGenotype - Color morph of the male moth. Samel values as for the FemaleGenotype.
MothID - Individual ID of the moth.
FemaleID - Individual ID of the female moth.
MaleID - Individual ID of the male moth.
Treatment_males - Refers to the morph combination used in the pairwise experiment. Can be WW_vs_Wy, WW_vs_yy, Wy_vs_yy or white_vs_yellow, when the male morph was known to be either WW or Wy.
Mated - Binomial variable for mating success. 1 if the individual mated and 0 if not.
Weight - Weight of the individual moth in milligrams (mg).
FemaleWeight - Weight of the female moth in mg.
MaleWeight - Weight of the male moth in mg.
Age - Age of the individual moth in days. Measured as the time between eclosion and day the individual was used in the experiment.
FemaleAge - Age of the female moth in days. Measured as the time between eclosion and day the individual was used in the experiment.
MaleAge - Age of the male moth in days. Measured as the time between eclosion and day the individual was used in the experiment.
Sex - Sex of the individual moth. f is for female and m is for male.
Replicate - Number indicating which replicate the individual was in for the large cage experiment. In total we had 15 replicates.
DateReplicate - The date when the experiment was done for each replicate.
Night - Whether it was the first (1) or second (2) night of the large cage experiment.
Year - the year of the experiment.
MatingDate - Full date of the trial in the pairwise experiment.
Choice - Morph of the male who mated with the female in the pairwise experiment. NA for the individuals that did not mate.
MatingLatency - Latency to mate calculated as minutes between the start of the trial to the moment a mating was observed.
Generation - Describes the yearly generation from which the laboratory stock moth came from. 2 refers to the second generation of the year and 3 to the third generation.
TotalRejected - Refers to the total number of rejections within each replicate of the large cage experiment, separated by female and male morph.
Likelihood_female_rejected - Likelihood that a female rejected a male mating attempt as either 0 (did not reject) or 1 (rejected at least once). Only one value per female, NA otherwise.
Number_times_female_rejected - Total number of times female rejected a male.
Likelihood_male_being_rejected - Likelihood a male mating attempt was rejected by a female as either 1 (attempt was rejected at least once) or 0 (no rejections from a female).
EggNumber - Total number of eggs produced by the mated pair.
LarvaeNumber - Total number of alive larvae (at third instar) produced by the mated pair.
HatchingSuccess - Percentage of offspring that survived until larval stage, as a value between 0 and 1.