The characteristics of the juvenile developmental environment of an individual can have many important consequences for their adult reproductive success as it may shape the development and expression of phenotypes that are relevant to the later operation of sexual selection. Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura) (Diptera: Drosophilidae) is an economically important invasive pest species that lays its eggs in many types of soft fruits and potentially experiences large intra-population spatial and temporal variation in its nutritional developmental environments. Here, we examine whether the larval nutritional developmental environment influences D. suzukii mate choice, egg production, and offspring performance. Using D. suzukii raised on diets differing in their nutritional quality, we examined mating preferences, fecundity, and offspring survivorship in “no-choice”, “female choice”, and “male choice” reproductive contexts. We found evidence for both adaptive and non-adaptive mate choice behaviours associated with the phenotypes of D. suzukii that had developed in different nutritional environments. These results reveal the complex nature of the relationship between the developmental environment and individual reproductive success in D. suzukii, which has important potential implications for future management plans involving this species.

This data contains information on mating outcome, mating latency, copulation duration, offpsring production and egg-to-adult survivorship of spotted wing fruit flies, Drosophila suzukii from 3 different mate choice assays (no choice, male choice and female choice). The data from the 3 assay files is also reorganized by the 4 possible combinations of the nutritional developmental histories of the mating pairs to faciliate comparisons between the choice and no-choice treatments.