When animals use costly labile display or signal traits to display to the opposite sex, they face complex decisions regarding the degree and timing of their investment in separate instances of trait expression. Such decisions may be informed by not only the focal individual’s condition (or pool of available resources), but also aspects of the social environment, such as perceptions of same-sex competition or the quality of available mates. However, the relative importance of these factors to investment decisions remains unclear. Here we use manipulations of condition (through dietary nutrition), recent social environment (exposure to a silenced male, non-silenced male, female, or isolation), and female mating history (single- or multiple-male) to test how quickly male decorated crickets (Gryllodes sigillatus) decide to begin courting an available female. We find that males that were previously housed with non-silenced males started courting the female earlier than other males. Females only mounted males after courtship began. Our results suggest a strong effect of the perception of competition on the decision to invest resources in sexual signalling behaviour, and that females might exert directional selection on its timing.

Data collection and processing is detailed in the associated paper.

Weights data contains the following fields:

MID - individual identifier

Diet_std - diet treatment, in single-unit increments

Weight - individual cricket weight, in grams

Time - start of period (0) or end of period (1)

 

Calling data contains the following fields:

MID - individual identifier

Call - calling effort, in seconds

Diet_std - diet treatment, in single-unit increments

EManip - social experience experimental manipulation (values: Control / Female / Sham male / Silenced male)

Day_cen - day of calling observation (-0.5, 0.5)

 

Latency data contains the following fields:

MID - individual identifier

Latency.Call - time until courtship call started, in seconds. Males that did not call are given the value of 1800 (end of period).

Latency.Mount - time until female mated the male, in seconds. Males that were not mounted have NA value.

Diet_std - diet treatment, in single-unit increments.

EManip - social experience experimental manipulation (values: Control / Female / Sham male / Silenced male)

Status - female mating status manipulation (values: Single-male / Multiple-male)