When genotypes differ in niche-constructing traits, genotypes are expected to differ in which environments they experience, providing a novel causal relationship between genotypes, environments, and behavior. Such genetic variation in niche construction (or, more precisely, environment construction) is predicted to be especially important for social environments, yet the quantitative-genetic parameters governing such variation is still poorly understood. Here, we examine genetic variation and cross-sex genetic correlations for social environment-constructing behaviors. We focus on whether genetic variation in patch use—the tendency to spend time near food patches where conspecifics may be present—and group-size preference—the specific group size chosen when individuals are affiliating—is correlated or decoupled across sexes in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Across three choice treatments, we find genotype and sex differences in how much time individuals spend near patches, and which group sizes they prefer. We find that the genetic basis of patch use is strongly coupled across sexes, whereas the genetic basis of group-size preference is completely decoupled across sexes. We discuss how these findings augment and complicate our understanding of the evolutionary genetics of social behaviors.

Please see manuscript for experimental details

Dryad data for: Strong and weak cross-sex correlations govern the quantitative-genetic architecture of social group choice in Drosophila melanogaster

data.csv

Results from experiments testing genetic variation in group-size preference in male and female fruit flies.  See associated paper for methods.  

Trial: unique number identifying each individual focal fly

date: the date the trial was performed.

genotype: Refers to the DGRP genotypes that were crossed to produce individuals for behavioral testing.  The first number refers to the genotype of the mother and the second to the father.  For example, 786/820 would represent an individual whose mother was genotype R-786 and whose father was genotype R-820

sex: the sex of the focal fly

shelf: which shelf the arena was located on in our lab

missing data: data quality check for missing data.  Should be 0 for all flies in this final dataset.

y: the number of times that the focal fly was observed perching near the large or small group

size: whether the measure of y in the adjacent column refers to the small social group or the large social group

side: whether the large group was on the left or right-hand side of the arena

treatment: the choices available to the focal fly, see manuscript for details.