Brachyrhaphis sympatric male mating preference datasets

Here, we tested male mating preferences for a pair of sister species, <i>Brachyrhaphis terrabensis </i>and <i>B. roseni, </i>from allopatric or sympatric populations<i>.</i> We found that for allopatric populations, males of neither species showed an obvious preference between conspecific and heterospecific females in dichotomous choice tests.

For sympatric populations, <i>B. roseni</i> males preferred to associate with their own conspecific females, but <i>B. terrabensis </i>males showed a heterospecific mate preference, thereby also choosing to preferentially associate with <i>B. roseni</i> females over their own conspecific females. Our work contributes to the accumulating evidence that heterospecific mate preferences are prevalent, but variable, in wild populations, and further substantiates these sister species as an intriguing system to investigate context-dependent behaviors.</p>