Size-assortative mating inDrosophila malerkotliana

Evidence of Male Mate Choice for Female Age in Drosophila Nasuta

“…Through these courtship activities, males of Drosophila better convey chemical, auditory, and visual signals to middle-aged females more quickly and try to convince the middle-aged females to mate than young and old aged females. This agrees with earlier studies of Drosophila that males which perform greater courtship activities are better mates and obtain greater mating success than those males which do not show high levels of courtship activities [27].…”

“…It was assumed that in Drosophila studies that females control mating success, i.e., whether mating takes place and with whom [31]. In contrast to male mate choice, in female mate choice not only involves the female preference for males but also involves male-male competition [27,[16][17]. Those studies suggested that male-male competition can reinforce female mate preference rather than operating in an antagonistic fashion [32].…”

“…We also quantified courtship acts such as tapping, scissoring, vibrating, licking, circling, ignoring, extruding, and decamping following the procedures of [27]. During tapping, the male initiates courtship with a foreleg motion, partially extends and simultaneously elevates 1 or both forelegs, and then strikes downward; thus, bringing the ventral surface of the tarsus into contact with the partner.…”

“…The influence of female age on the number of ovarioles and wing length, Virgin young aged, middle-aged, and old aged females were individually sacrificed to count the number of ovarioles and determine the female wing length following the procedures of [27]. To count the number of ovarioles, each female was dissected in a drop of physiological saline using a binocular stereomicroscope; ovarioles of the left ovary were separated from one another with the help of fine needles.…”

“…The number of ovarioles in each female was counted. From the same female, wing length was also measured using a 100x [microscope] following the procedures of [27]. The mean ovariole number and female wing length data were also subjected to one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey's honest post-hoc test.…”