Male mating success and survival in the field with respect to size and courtship song characters in Drosophila littoralis and D. montana (Diptera: Drosophilidae)

We investigated the importance of male song and morphological characters to the male mating success in a two-year field study in natural populations of D. littoralis and D. montana. We compared the properties of mating flies with those of a random male sample taken at the same time and place. In D. littoralis the male's size had no effect on his mating success, while in D. montana small males had a mating advantage in the field during the first study year. Females preferred males with short sound pulses in both species. We also examined the relationship between male morphological and song characters and viability by collecting male flies in late summer and comparing the means of male characters to those of overwintered flies the next spring. In D. littoralis male size had no effect on overwinter survival. In D. montana large flies survived better than small flies. In both species the shifts in song characters during the winter dormancy were opposite to those caused by sexual selection. Our results, accordingly, imply a possible balance between the forces of sexual and natural selection, which act in opposing directions on attractive male traits.