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Mating Walnut Flies:
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Mating Walnut Flies: Overview of the mating game

The upcoming animated scenarios show four possible combinations of sex ratio (male-biased or female-biased) and copulation duration (long or short).

In each scenario, the reproductive success of one "focal" male is tracked as he mates with several females. The scenario tracks how much time has elapsed, how many females the focal male has mated with, and how many eggs he has fertilized.

Image: screen shot of mating behavior simulation, showing location of parameters

(Note: certain parameters have been changed to facilitate the simulation; for example, the flies mate for a few seconds, whereas in real life they mate for several minutes.)

Each scenario lasts 21 frames. At the end of each scenario, write down the summary numbers shown to the right of the arena on the last frame; you will be asked about them later.

Below is a suggestion on how to tally the data (or download a pdf version of the tally sheet). Visually-impaired users can skip this table if they wish, because the text-only content has all the requisite information.

Data to be collected from viewing the four scenarios
  number of females mated number of eggs fertilized fertilization rate

male-biased sex ratio
short copulations

     

male-biased sex ratio
long copulations

     
female-biased sex ratio
short copulations
     
female-biased sex ratio
long copulations
     


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